Sawatch

Avalanche

Colin Mitchell · May 9, 2016 · Aspen

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Weather

Warm, breezy and overcast. Low clouds and light snow lowered visibility to around 100' above 12,000'.

Snowpack

Westerly aspects had a couple inches of new snow and a strong melt-freeze crust, over 85 cms of mushy, wet, meltforms. A variety of patchy, deteriorating ice crusts and large perc tubes were present in the lower layer. Southerly aspects have a similar structure. Seems like drainage has been established, but deep, loose wet slides are still a concern. The new snow layer was 1f hard and will likely continue to stiffen up overnight. Bonding to the old snow surface was quite good. This should help reduce the likelihood of LW slides in the new snow layer for the near future.

Avalanche

No avalanches were observed.