Southern San Juan
SnowpackMatt Huber · Jan 20, 2022 · Southern San Juan
Weather
A warm and sunny January day. A slight breeze at ridgetop but not enough to move snow.
Snowpack
Crusts on southerlies near and below treeline are becoming 3-5 centimeters thick and supportive to a skier where they are thickest. On northerlies, the depth of snow near treeline is between 2.5 and 3 meters. It consists of a generally right side up snowpack, 4f+ to pencil+ hardness. About 30 cm of basal facets exist near the ground that are rounding and sintering. Standard extended column tests produced no results. I was able to force propagating failures out on buried graupel layers at 140 cm and 70 cm from the ground with non-standard tests. The snow surface on shaded aspects is 5-10 centimeters of surface facets and surface hoar.