Northern San Juan
SnowpackSusan Hale; Ann Mellick Josh Hirshberg · Mar 19, 2014 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Winds shifted late morning from northerly to more southerly and remained light. Temps were quite cold this morning till the flow direction changed.
Snowpack
Access to our SE destination was up through north facing glades. Still winter snow here with plenty of surface faceting; noted pockets of thin wind slab in unusual places (including open areas below tl) from recent strong winds. Elsewhere - (E-SE Near and below TL), snow is transitioning to spring conditions. Found thick, hard MF crust layers topped with a thin coat of the newest dusting of snow/graupel/and DUST. Also seeing faceting within this top bit of snow. Upper 50cm of snowpack was frozen. Below that was moist snow to the ground. Some very weak partially transitioned facets in lower snowpack. Of note were tests showing propagation (ECTP 24) on Jan 7th FC/MF. See Pit details below - of an open SE aspect, NTL.