Sangre de Cristo

Temperatures started in the low negatives in the morning increasing to the lower teens/high single digits by midday. Winds started out light to moderate and increased to strong/very strong in the afternoon with lots of blowing snow evident. Clear skies all day.

The snowpack is mostly new snow on top of facets. On east facing terrain I found evidence of wind slabs forming in many areas however they were often very thin and weak. I got cracking in one place where this slab was approximately 15cm thick. The slab itself was still very soft and unsupportable and this only happened on one slope even though I traveled on similar slopes to it throughout the day. I was able to get collapsing twice on ESE facing terrain that was exposed to the sun. I dug a pit nearby and it appeared as though these areas had a solar/temperature crust from the before the storm buried that I was able to get propagating ECT results on. With the cold temperatures I imagine that the few places where these crusts were found will quickly facet away. The wind was extremely strong, likely too strong to be forming new wind slabs