Sawtelle Peak - Centennials
We dug two pits near where Doug and Ian were on January 12th. There has been so little snow since then that one of their pit sites was still clearly visible 6-7 weeks later. We could use some snow! The story here is very similar to that in the ranges from West Yellowstone through Big Sky. The top foot of the snowpack is very weak and getting weaker but we are waiting for snow before anything outside of isolated areas becomes unstable. ECTXs in both pits. The lower snowpack is largely locked up for now with a thick layer of pencil hard snow (rounds) below the facets.
The total snow depth is ~200 cm which is less than what Doug and Ian found over a month ago.
Bottom line: Stable for now, but this will change dramatically with a decent snowstorm.