Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Feb 7, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Light winds with no snow transport. Warm in the sun, cool in the shade.
Snowpack
Below treeline on east and northerly slopes the snowpack is weak and getting weaker. The mid-pack slab is still making for supportable conditions but the top 20 cm is cohesionless. Easy to trigger Loose Dry avalanches. HS 60 to 100 cm. Near treeline the upper snowpack is much the same as below except for a few intermixed wind crusts. Near treeline does not sluff as easily as lower down. Boot pen has increased to 30 cm from about 10 cm a month ago. An extended column test on a north-facing slope with an HS of 125 cm produced no results. It doesn't seem like upper snowpack faceting would make it easier to trigger avalanches near the ground. The basal facets are quite strong and it still is going to take a decent load to see avalanches break deeply. Above treeline the snow surface is hard and there is no issues with Loose Dry avalanches. I avoided a steep, drifted rollover and got the slope to crack by skiing next to it. This was northeast facing.
Avalanche
I intentionally triggered a couple of Loose Dry avalanches on east-facing below treeline slopes by pushing some snow down steep slopes. The avalanches packed quite a punch and I could hear small twigs breaking in the trees. I moved over to a less steep slope (still mid-thirties) and skied down to keep ahead of the sluffing. Fortunately when I stopped, I stopped behind a large tree. A Loose Dry avalanche came smoking down with debris splitting around the tree I was standing behind. The debris was not enough to bury a person, but the a person standing still would have no chance of remaining on their feet if hit with one of these avalanches. I also observed a fresh Wind Slab avalanche on a southeast-facing, above-treeline slope in Delmonica Gulch.