Northern San Juan
SnowpackBill Nalli · Jan 25, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Another calm and warm day for the first half and then high clouds moved in around 1pm limiting late day temps.
Snowpack
Near and below treeline the surface got moist but didnt get wet enough for any new wet loose issues. I think the warm temp at these elevations over the last couple days has helped settle out any instabilities as we move in to the future. A few D1, loose dry slides were seen from 1/23 and one D1.5 was seen on south facing Lookout peak from 1/24 that stopped just above the Ophir Pass road. Another sizable SS-N-D2 was seen in upper Spring Gulch on a southeast aspect at 13,200'. This was from a starting zone that had not run prior, in between two other slides that ran earlier this month. The structure on southeast slopes above treeline in this zone is still poor. Numerous crust/facet combos exist all in the upper 100cm and the newest one has formed on the existing snow surface. The warm temps over the last couple days does not seem to have helped heel this persistent slab issue on southerlies above Ophir. Stabiity tests continue to show stubborn but reactive failures.