Sawatch

Fairly chilly morning, with cooler temperatures and clouds building to the southwest. With a light to moderate breeze coming in from the West.

There's very little snow outside of confined couloirs on north-facing slopes above treeline. South-facing slopes are a mix of crusts or a general lack of snow below treeline. I dug on a SE-facing slope above tree line and found the hard slab we've been concerned about in the upper portion of the snowpack here, sitting on a sandwich of weak facets below it, then a super hard, impenetrable, knife-hard crust formed around the end of December/beginning of January with just weak snow below it. This slab facet/hard crust combination is what people have been triggering avalanches on recently, and it remains the most concerning on northeast-to-east-to-southeast aspects.