Sawatch

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett · Jan 17, 2019 · Sawatch

Weather

Increasing cloud cover and lowering ceilings all day. By 3pm, the pre-frontal winds were strong, by 4pm the squall lines were bearing down on us, with on-again off-again ground blizzards.

Snowpack

Very weak overall. Snowpack tests were futile as the facets would pour out from underneath the 1/16 storm snow. Drifted slabs near and above treeline, otherwise entirely faceted snowpack.

Avalanche

Many avalanches along the Sawatch crest. Notable D2.5 in one of the east chutes off Park Cone that cleared small trees most of the way down the track (ob in Gunnison zone). From Cottonwood Pass we could see 4 fresh slabs in the basin to the south of the Pass (Middle Cottonwood Cr) on steep drifted easterly slopes. This pattern repeated in the Fossil Ridge area, with >dozen similar avalanches in that area. From Taylor Park we could see 20+ D2's that ran in cross-loaded features on westerly aspects north of Cottonwood Pass. Looking back to the south side of the Elk Range, there were 20+ D2's that ran during the 1/16 storm, but nothing observed larger than D2 other than Park Cone.