In hydrological investigations, modeling and forecasting of snow melt runoff requires information about snowpack properties and their spatial variability. This study demonstrates the capabilities of the SIR-C/X-SAR, a multi-frequency and multi-polarization spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR), on deriving snow wetness, and snow water equivalence. In contrast to a single-polarization SAR, this study shows that SIR-C/X-SAR has the capabilities to (1) estimate free liquid water content on the top of snowpack with C-band measurements quantitatively, and (2) infer snow density and ground dielectric and roughness properties with L-band measurements, in addition to map both dry and wet snow cover with the multi-frequency and multi-polarization measurements.