Sawatch

Avalanche

Jason Konigsberg · May 1, 2020 · Sawatch

Weather

Mostly clear skies with just light winds at 13k feet. Winds picked up in the afternoon.

Snowpack

The snow surface froze overnight with clear skies. Surface temperature below treeline at 7:30 a.m. was -3 C. The surface melt-freeze crust was about 4 inches thick near and below treeline and thicker and more consolidated with the rest of the snowpack above treeline. By 9 a.m. the top inch of snow on southeast-facing slopes softened up. The above treeline snowpack was supportable and not punchy at all. We still avoided steep, thin, rocky areas. With the marginal freeze we planned to stay on open slopes. Arriving back at the trailhead around 10:30 a.m the snowpack at lower elevations was beginning to get wet but still semi supportable. I doubt this lasted much longer.

Avalanche

Numerous avalanches on northerly-facing, below treeline Long and Derry Hill in Iowa Gulch. Some of these avalanche may have ran this morning. Most had run since April 27 as I was out here then and did not observe much activity. Also a fresh looking long-running avalanche in steep terrain on East Ball Mountain.