Sawatch

Avalanche

Anonymous · Dec 23, 2020 · Sawatch

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Weather

Cloudy, intermittently snowing, temps 2-8F, wind from the NW @ 10-20 G 35

Snowpack

Incredibly sensitive & reactive. Below TL, 12-18" soft slab on top of 12" of facets. Lots of collapsing with shooting cracks ahead of skier breaking trail. At TL, less snow, more variable soft slab transitioning to shallow (<12") wind slab.

Avalanche

We remotely triggered two small avalanches (purple circles) as we traversed the slope (blue track) above TL. Each avalanche broke in obviously wind-loaded (and loading) areas & travelled only about 50 vertical feet due to the shallow slope angles (not much >30 degrees). We transitioned from ascent to descent at the end of the blue track and skied down (SSE) back to the meadow from where we started without incident.