Northern San Juan
AvalancheBill Nalli · Mar 2, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Clearing mid morning allowed sun to hit east facing sloped near and below treeline. Cold temps up high limited sun affect. By afternoon, high clouds and intermittent snowfall limited daytime heating. Moderate NW wind also helped keep it cooler.
Snowpack
New snow totals in the Red Mt. Pass zone were 3-4" with .3" snow water equivalent. Areas with more wind drifting were more like 6 inches. Sunny slopes had a supportable crust below and shady slopes had another 5 inches of settled recrystallized snow making for better riding. Drifts below ridges had the look and feel of a slab but were not reactive in the areas travelled today. I jumped on a few test slopes and only got the new loose snow to move around my skis. No slabs. The sun was warming the surface snow very fast in the AM and this may have helped stability on slopes less steep than 38 degrees. Steeper than that and the strong warming caused shallow wet-loose slides. We did not get on any slopes with a shallow weak snowpack but the strong solar input may have decreased stability in these areas.
Avalanche
Shallow wet-loose with early solar input.