Southern San Juan
AvalancheChris Bilbrey Jeff Davis · Feb 12, 2021 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Steady snowfall accumulated around 6 inches of new snow since this morning at elevations between 10,500 and 11,000 feet. Southwest winds were light along treed ridges with moderate gust. Obscured skies didn't provide visibility of surrounding higher terrain.
Snowpack
Today, we traveled on most aspect all below 11,000 feet. Recent warm temperatures have made an impact on the snowpack and a crust was observed below snowfall from this week on all but northerly slopes and layers deeper in the pack are rounding. That said there are still small interfaces within the snowpack that if overloaded could produce avalanches. The most worrisome layer sits just above the ground and consist of large grain facets and depth hoar. Another interesting note today was the weakness noted between Wednesday and today's snow. When skiing over small rolls, tiny avalanches were triggered. While this is not a problem today but as snow accumulates over the next few days, storm snow avalanche problem can be expected along with a rise in hazard. No collapsing but isolated cracking to steep terrain features and around skis while breaking trail.
Avalanche
None observed