Sawatch

Increasing clouds, with gusty winds in exposed places. Snow transport was light.

On east- and northeast-facing slopes below and near treeline, the snow depth ranges from 20 to 45 cm, increasing with elevation. The future layer of concern is very weak faceted snow that sits under a fragile melt-freeze crust. This weak layer is located approximately 6 to 12 cm below the surface. Although the crust varies in thickness, it's not worth getting into the details because everywhere I traveled, the crust was breakable and fragile enough that it wouldn't support much of a slab. There is almost no snow on southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest near treeline. And it's much the same below treeline, though northwest hold a thin covering of snow between 10,500 and 11,500 ft. Above treeline has been ravaged by the winds. All surfaces above treeline that I traveled on were either barren of snow or had an ice-hard wind or melt-freeze crust. It's hard to imagine a start zone with continuous weak layer coverage, though this is something we should target in the days ahead.