Northern San Juan
Avalanchedoug byerly · Jan 10, 2021 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Mostly cloudy, calm winds and light, intermittent snow.
Snowpack
variable snow depths on approach route from as little as 16" to 48"+ at top of southwest spur. Rolling settlements and shooting cracks the entire approach as this terrain had not seen any skiers this season.
Avalanche
Topped out the approach at 12,000" at saddle between east and central summits on a flat ridge with clear views of several steep avalanche paths/ ski routes on north face of Red mtn. #1. No cornices present on ridgeline. As i peered into the avalanche path below me, a huge settlement occurred on the flat ridge which propagated into the north facing feature which then cracked wall to wall (approx. 100 meters wide) and slid full track to valley floor(approx. 1600' in length) with huge powder cloud and covering fresh snowmobile tracks from a group who had approached from the Cement creek drainage near Silverton mtn. 4' crown at ridgeline and 2-3' at mid track. I skied back down the approach route without incident. I was surprised the snow machines did not remote trigger this slope from below as sensitive as conditions are at present. I had no phone for photos .