Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Mar 1, 2019 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Snow showers and obscured skies in the morning gave way to broken skies by midday. Winds increased throughout the tour and were strong and gusty by afternoon.
Snowpack
The snowpack continues to strengthen. A quick test pit at 12,000' on a north aspect revealed 2 weak layers of rounding facets (1f-)down 50 and 80 cm respectively. Neither one produced significant results with snowpack tests. ECTN 26, down 50 cm. The rest of the snowpack in our meter-deep pit was 1f to pencil-hard slabs. Probing indicated the snow lower in the snowpack was ~pencil-hard with at least one harder layer that was difficult to get the probe through. The snowpack depth dropped off above treeline and became more variable. It was characterized by very hard slabs over unreactive facets. No new avalanche activity or signs of instability observed.
Avalanche
No activity observed