Sawatch

N/A

A sunny, warm day with high thin clouds and light to moderate west winds.

At 12,000 feet on the northeast-facing slope, the wind-affected snow is concentrated to the upper end of near tree line to above tree line band. The slab is fairly discontinuous, sitting on weak facets, deteriorating crusts, and a stout Christmas crust with large-grained depth hoar below. A more connective slab may fail at these layers down to the crust. ECT results were non-propagating due to the non-continuous slab. At the crown of a recent avalanche a few hundred feet away, I found a much thicker, connected slab than my other pit location above. The avalanche failed on a thin stripe of buried near-surface facets sitting on a thin crust. It looked to be initiated from a thin spot in the slab on the flank. This was a heavily drifted concave bowl that was unique in this terrain and held more snow than the surrounding areas.