Sawatch

Avalanche

Chris Benson · Feb 14, 2021 · Sawatch

View on map

Weather

Cold morning. Light snow in the morning, clearing to partly cloudy. Light NW winds. Towards the end of the day, southwest aspects were becoming a little moist. Little to no wind transport in our area, however, around 5 pm NW winds began to pick up, with some blowing snow in the alpine.

Snowpack

We got two decent-sized collapses while on SW aspects today. At times, we were punching through the latest snow and wallowing in facets. Other times, the snowpack was supportive and about 12 cm of fresh snow was found on fast-skiing crusts and wind-hardened snow underneath. Above treeline, snow looked very wind-affected with lots of textures and cross loading, evidently, from the NW. We skied the classic low-angle pitches on east and NE and found excellent snow quality with fast-skiing and supportive conditions in most areas.

Avalanche

Nothing too recent, except for a SE aspect just off of Chalk Mountain near Fremont Pass. Not sure on timing but looked pretty fresh. Noticed a somewhat fresh looking slab in the drainage north of Delmonica Gulch. This looked like a R2-D2 on a NE aspect near treeline.