Northern San Juan
AvalancheJeff Davis · Apr 10, 2016 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Warm start to a spring day. Ample sunshine and warm temperatures. Winds at higher elevations were brisk and helped to keep the snow surface cool.
Snowpack
The snowpack is deep into the spring cycle. The trace of snow that fell on Saturday was still cold on North facing aspects and was not bonding well to the existing bed surface. Due to the amount of snow this did little to avalanche danger. The snow surface stayed firm on all aspects above treeline. The snowpack was more frozen at lower elevations than originally expected, but broke down throughout the day. While traveling near and below treeline in the afternoon collapsing in the snow surface was observed. "Felt like the floor was dropping out below your skis." The recent dust layer is making its way to the surface. This will continue to speed up the surface melting process.
Avalanche
Lots of roller balls and point release avalanches observed. All seemed old.