Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Oct 19, 2018 · Sawatch
Weather
Warm with temps in the low 30s at 11k feet. Light breeze in most places with no signs of blowing snow. The snow depth ranges from 2 feet deep in isolated wind-drifted areas to 4" or less on sunny slopes.
Snowpack
Overall the snowpack is thin and there are few places to ride without hitting rocks. Settled snow depth in sheltered areas is about 30 cms on shady slopes and 10 cms or less on sunny slopes. There is little evidence of any avalanche problems. Previously wind-drifted areas are limited to isolated terrain features and these features, that may have caused problems earlier in the month, showed no signs of instability.---Looking towards the future, shady slopes are faceting and the weakest layer is very small facets near the ground. And although the coverage is thin, ground obstacles are covered enough that we will have to be concerned with storm slab avalanches if we were to get a storm with a foot or more of snow. This is only the case for above-treeline slopes on the northern half of the compass and it will take much more snow to cover ground obstacles on southerly slopes. The snowpack on southerly slopes is only a couple inches.