Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Nov 9, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Clear, windy and warm. There wasn't much snow moving around.
Snowpack
The overall impression of this area is wind-worked, highly variable snow coverage and where there is snow it is shallow. There are some deeper wind-loaded pockets on cross-loaded and top-loaded terrain features but these are scattered across the landscape. A wind-drifted feature that I dug in above treeline was about 55 cm or close to 2 feet deep. This is where I triggered a collapse with the slab moving slightly on an upper-twenty-degree, north-facing slope. The weak layer responsible for the collapse was small facets at the ground.---Moving down in elevation to near treeline, the snowpack is about 35 cm deep. In general there is much less loading evident then above treeline but the snow surface is still hard in some places with thin 2 to 3 inch wind slabs. The sheltered near treeline areas will be the most concerning slopes with a big load. This is where the weak layer (which is late October snow) is the most continuous and the recent storm snow is the beginning of connecting terrain with a slab. This early-slab formation from November snow is still very soft. Non-propagating ECTN results shows that you can initiate a crack in weak snow near the ground, but the slab is too soft and not cohesive enough to communicate that fracture. These near treeline observations are from northerly slopes. Southerly slopes are very thin and there is no weak layer except for the current one forming at the surface.---Below treeline there wasn't much late October snow to sit around and facet. On shady slopes I found 20 cm of recent snow sitting on the ground. Sunny slopes barely have any snow and are better suited for hiking than over-snow travel.
Avalanche
None observed from Fremont Pass to Indy except for the previously reported avalanche in the Star Mountain B path