Southern San Juan

Snowpack

Matt Huber · Nov 14, 2020 · Southern San Juan

Weather

Intermittent snow showers and broken cloud cover cleared about noon for clear skies. Strong southwest winds plagued the trip from start to finish. Temperatures felt warm and with increasing sunshine, the fresh 2" of snow became slightly moist on sunny slopes. Winds were strong enough to transport snow but likely too strong for effective loading. With only 2" of fresh snow, wind slab development was not significant near and below treeline.

Snowpack

The snowpack near treeline typically ranges between 85 to 110 cm on northeast through east facing slopes. Strong winds stripped outhwest and west-facing slopes above treeline almost free of snow. On a northeast-facing slope at 11,700 feet, the total snowpack was 100 cm. The snowpack is generally right side up from fist at the surface to 1F+ near the ground. A few small, unreactive graupel layers in the mid-pack at about 65 cm from the ground are barely visible but a very striking surface hoar layer sitting on a crust dominates the snowpack at about 35 cm from the ground. This layer is not found on all aspects or even on all northeast aspects, one ridge to the north the layer was not found. The layer is not especially reactive,ECTN27/CTH29 RP, but is protected below 60-70 cm of snow, will likely be with us for awhile and is worth watching with large loading events