Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Mar 10, 2020 · Sawatch
Weather
Overcast day with clouds obscuring the peaks at times. A brief shot of light snow around noon but no measurable accumulations through the day. We didn't make it to any high ridgelines but local stations show 20 to 30 mph sustained winds at 12k.
Snowpack
The top couple of inches of snow was slightly moist but not wet. No rollerballs observed. Below treeline, generally below 10,200 ft, was unsupportable in places. The snowpack is only about 1 meter deep at this elevation and wet avalanches would be a concern as the snowpack has yet to recover. This is a really small slice of BTL, just 200 vertical feet from the trailhead. Below 10k feet there is little snow. As elevation is gained, the snowpack is supportable and just the top few inches of snow became wet in the past few days. A few inches of moist snow sits on a two-inch thick, supportable melt-freeze crust. I looked at mostly east-facing slopes and did not find evidence of previous melt water, or drainage channels below the top few inches. I dug on open slopes without a lot of rocks and this type of terrain is far from wet avalanche problems. Good news for now but the spring-time transition has not started so we will have to watch this when we go through a warmer period. Steep, rocky, shallow snowpack areas are a different story and should be approached with caution. Depending on elevation even these areas are improving with today's cool, windy and cloudy day.
Avalanche
One older, small Loose wet avalanche observed out of a rocky area. When the avalanche hit the open slope below it did not gouge past the top few inches of snow.