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Andrews Glacier

40.2874, −105.6845 · 3,603 m · NE · 20° · 3.7 ha on Sep 22

Snow

From the satellite, Sep 22 pass. No ground report in the last 10 days.

Late season: melting, splitting, running water and rockfall (Patrick, Aug 2026).

What the satellite saw

Drag the handle to compare two passes; tap a pass below to change them. The blue line is what the scanner counted as snow.

0    200 m
N
Every pass this season · tap one to compare it

Sentinel-2 L2A true color, read at 20 m. One pixel is 0.04 ha. A strip narrower than about 40 m can hold skiable snow and show nothing. By mid-September, north-facing cirques sit in shadow at the late-morning overpass, so one zero isn't proof of anything.

Reviewer notes

  • Sep 27 pass · excluded: in shadow

    In shadow, exclude this pass.

    Patrick · Sep 28

An admin checked the imagery. An excluded reading stays visible above but doesn't count toward the status.

Getting there

Approach
~3 h · 6 km one way
Route
Glacier Gorge TH, via Loch Vale trail to Andrews Tarn
Approach from
Munter rule from straight-line distance and climb, from the first analysis. Rough.
Route from
Unverified: written during the first analysis, not by someone who went.
Terrain from
From the first analysis: a coarse elevation model at one point. Not checked.

From the ground

Melting, splitting, running water, rockfall made it dangerous.

Running waterRockfallSplitting or cracks

Snow on each pass

Hectares of counted snow per pass, as a chart. Grey stubs are passes with cloud over the snowfield.
0 ha246JUL 4: cloud or not coveredJUL 9: 2.8 haJUL 14: 5.8 haJUL 19: cloud or not coveredJUL 24: 3.8 haJUL 26: 3.9 haJUL 29: 3.6 haAUG 3: 3.5 haAUG 8: 0.28 hashadow?AUG 13: cloud or not coveredAUG 15: cloud or not coveredAUG 18: cloud or not coveredAUG 23: 3.3 haAUG 28: 2.9 haSEP 2: cloud or not coveredSEP 4: 3.5 haSEP 7: cloud or not coveredSEP 12: 0.16 hashadow?SEP 17: cloud or not coveredSEP 22: 3.7 haSEP 24: cloud or not coveredSEP 27: 0 ha, excluded by a reviewer (in shadow)excludedOCT 7: cloud or not coveredJUL 4JUL 24AUG 8AUG 23SEP 7SEP 24OCT 7

How we got to this status

  1. A reviewer excluded this snowfield's reading on Sep 27 (in shadow) after checking the imagery. The status comes from the other passes, the latest being Sep 22.
  2. The Oct 7 pass was cloudy over the snowfield (70%), so a cloudy pass counts as no look, not as zero. This uses the Sep 22 pass.
  3. Sep 22 pass fully covers the snowfield and is clear over it.
  4. 92 snow pixels in one cluster, which is 3.7 ha.
  5. Not flagged as possible new snow.
  6. Size is in line with the last month (peak 3.7 ha on Sep 22).
Scan run 7 · status rules 2026.09-2
NDSI > 0.4 · NIR ≥ 0.6 × green · SCL mask · algorithm 2026.09-2
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