These data include snow depth and snow water equivalence (SWE) for the 2022 and 2023 water years during 16 separate field campaigns. The field area is comprised of 311 surveyed points in, on the perimeter of, and surrounding six forest openings next to Coal Creek off Coal Bank Pass in the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado, USA. These measurements were taken to look at the relationship between snow accumulation and snow melt patterns between forest gaps of various sizes, and forest edges of various sizes (edge of forest gaps). Canopy metrics, including canopy height, total gap area, mean distance to canopy, canopy closure, leaf area index, non-directional edginess, canopy edginess with a southern aspect, and canopy edginess with a northern aspect were defined using aerial lidar data for the San Juan Mountains and can be found in an affiliated data release titled, ‘High Resolution Canopy Structure and Density Metrics for Southwest Colorado Derived from 2019 Aerial Lidar.’ These metrics are also included herein for the 311 surveyed points.