Northern San Juan
SnowpackJeremy Yanko · Apr 19, 2022 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Looked like rain and felt that way too as dark mid level clouds filled the sky along with increased winds throughout the day.
Snowpack
Found mostly supportable conditions at the beginning of the ascent and upon exiting as well on north/northeast terrain. Over the course of 3 hours, the main change near treeline and below was ski pen increased from 10-20cm into moist-wet grains. The main hazard found revolved around downhill travel as the surface was sticky and resistant to efficient gliding. Evaluation and travel on steeper rocky slopes near and below treeline revealed little cohesive movement of moist surface snow and took some solid effort to engage sluffs. A nice snowpack measuring at 200 cm was selected for digging in an open area around 11,400ft. This site was nearly due north facing and with a nice slab comprised of moist rounds 100cm above the persistent weak layer of 4F- rounding facets. The alpine stayed fairly glued together over the course of the last 6 days per post storm event. Both boot pen and ski pen were supportable on the old MFcr interface down 10-15cm. The brown dust collected and scoured areas provided a more favorable travel experience as the melt-freeze cycle was more established in comparison to the white ribbons of snow scattered throughout the alpine landscape.