Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Jarrod Regan · Mar 24, 2013 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Cold with gusty winds from the W and NW. Blue skies in the morning gave way to patchy clouds by midday.

Snowpack

5-6 ft of well consolidated snow with the storm snow on top. This storm snow was highly wind affected and varied widely by aspect. Some aspects were scoured to a firm crust while others had wind deposits from 4"-20". Solar aspects had a firm suncrust below the storm snow while N aspects were softer. There was a dust layer about 20" below new snow and the persistent facets still composed the bottom 10-15". We ski cut a cornice before skiing N aspect in US basin. Triggered a small wind slab in a main start zone. It was just the new storm snow and ran about 25 ft. We found good skiing in the gully below the start zone with about 6" of soft wind deposited snow. No signs of instability on the descent.