Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Nov 23, 2019 · Aspen
Weather
10 to 12 inches of recent storm snow
Snowpack
The snowpack is still really thin below about 11,800 ft. Once you get near treeline, the snowpack is a little deeper and terrain features are beginning to fill in. This is also the elevation where significant collapsing begins. Shooting cracks and collapses within terrain feature are abundant. No rolling, thundering collapses observed. Above treeline on northeast and east-facing slopes, the collapsing continues and there is also additional drifted snow on these slopes.---The bottom line is the snowpack structure is poor. This is well documented around the state right now. It is likely you can trigger avalanches in specific spots. Avalanches are relatively small, but they are packing quite the punch and given the right terrain these avalanches can injure or potentially bury a person.
Avalanche
One small natural avalanche observed that probably happened during the storm 11/22/19. With good visibility into a lot of terrain, this was the only natural avalanche observed.--- I remotely triggered an avalanche while skiing down a low-angle rib between two steeper terrain features. I targeted this slope from the approach as one where I might be able to trigger an avalanche. It looked wind loaded and shooting cracks were abundant prior to reaching the slope. Two turns off the ridge, onto the low-angle rib, the steeper slope collapsed and slid with shooting cracks spider webbing into lower angle terrain.