Northern San Juan
SnowpackJeff Davis · Feb 5, 2016 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Cold and Clear. Wind-loading in the high alpine.
Snowpack
I dug above treeline on a east facing slope just below the second gate leaving the ski area. Delta Bowl. This area is affected by wind-loading. The Snowpack was 165cm's deep with lots of strong layers. On compression tests the most notable failure was a CT17 about 50cm's from the surface. The column also failed at the ground on hard results but the layer above the basel weakness if very strong. I was not able to get the failure to propagate on an ECT. (See attached snowpit) No natural activity was observed following this past weeks storm. The question is, how many crowns have filled in? With multiple layers of denser snow over weaker snow I would still be wary of slopes with a similar snowpack.