Sawatch

Avalanche

Becs Hodgetts · Mar 31, 2020 · Sawatch

Weather

Sunny and mostly calm day with occasional light breeze. Became warm with Brumley (10600') reading 42F at noon.

Snowpack

We poked around on east and north slopes above treeline. East slopes above treeline: HS 197cm. 4-6 inches of new snow sat on a 2cm thick melt freeze crust layer that was too hard to poke a pole through.Below this was 7cm of fist hard wind broken particles. From here to 35cm from the ground was a 1m thick 1 finger to pencil hard layer of rounds. I did not dig through this layer, but felt a much less resistant layer that persisted through 35cm to the ground. We also dug on a north above treeline slope with HS 140 cm with similar structure, however no softer layer was felt near the ground. Other shallower areas were found on the margins of this slope with an average HS of 60cm. Below treeline slopes were moist to wet by 3pm.

Avalanche

Several very small loose wet avalanche were noted beginning from rocky areas near and above treeline. The avalanche listed below is estimated to have run around March 22nd during the extreme wind event.