Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg, blase reardon · May 3, 2017 · Sawatch
Weather
Weather story of the day was wind loading in areas above treeline.The winds today were stronger than Sunday's winds and less effective at building a slab. Although I am sure there was effective loading on some exposed slopes, we did not observe this in the area that we were in. Cloud cover decreased throughout the day becoming clear by 1 PM. Temperatures felt cold at rigetop and even at lower elevations out of the wind the temperatures today did not feel hot.
Snowpack
The 2-3" of new snow overnight on Tuesday was drifted by the strong wind into drifts 10-12 inches deep. These wind-drifted areas were not slabby and we did not observe any significant cracking in newly wind-drifted snow. Snow on easterly slopes stayed dry and winter-like. There is about 30cms of dry snow above the late-April crust. Near and below treeline there is about 15cms of settled dry snow above a crust. We experienced shooting cracks on an east-facing slope near treeline. The cracks were due to a collapse on a weak layer (possibly small facets) above the old melt-freeze crust
Avalanche
We observed one small Wind Slab avalanche on an easterly slope. We came across evidence of an old avalanche, likely from mid-January, that destroyed timber and widened an avalanche path. The avalanche ran 2200 feet on a northeast-facing slopes and was estimated to be D3.5 in size.