Southern San Juan
AvalancheChris Bilbrey · Apr 25, 2024 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Full sun in the morning. Clouds started rolling in just before Noon along with an increase in winds. By 2:30 PM, snow started falling in the higher terrain and slowly mixed down to valley bottoms. More of a graupel-sleet mixture below 10,000 feet.
Snowpack
We found continuous snow cover around 10,000 feet on southerly aspects, and slightly lower on northerlies. Below treeline, the snow surface and snowpack in general appears "beat up" after many days of sun and warmth. While today's weather did not promote ideal riding conditions, it was nice to break up the monotony of warmth. Sun in the morning softened surfaces across all aspects up to about 12,000 feet, and pokes of sun slowed down the re-freeze process. Surface wetting observed across all aspects up to about 12,000 feet, and the snowpack on northerlies at similar elevation consists of moist grains. Once we climbed to near and above 13,000 feet, northerly aspects were moist in the upper layers, but still harboring drier snow deeper within. Deep sun-cups on southerly aspects may help promote better bonding with incoming new snow, but places where surfaces are firm and smooth could act as a slippery sliding surface depending on new snow densities. Lots of water flowing below the snowpack across all elevation bands. We found several southerly slopes near and above treeline with large open cracks below cliffs and vegetated burnouts. Some cracks were many feet deep and spanned 10 to 20 feet wide. These were probably the beginnings of Wet Slab avalanche failure, but all the right makings did not exists to produce an avalanche. Something to look for and steer around if traveling in the mountains later in the spring and during subsequent warm-ups.
Avalanche
A few small Loose Wet avalanches that likely ran in the last couple of days. Bed surfaces were more white than older looking slides.