Northern San Juan
AvalancheAngela Hawse · Dec 10, 2015 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Broken to OVC skies with temperatures above freezing today. Winds were light BTL with some blowing snow loading northerly aspects. We did not observe transport in the alpine with the scouring, but winds looked to be moderate most of the day.
Snowpack
Snow depth ranged from 70-100cm below treeline with typical shallow to bare ground on southerly tilts. The 10-20cm of low density snow from the Dec. 4th storm had little wind effect and skied nicely in the trees with a supportable base. Between the Nov 17th and Dec 4th storms, the wind was busy and left a pencil hard crust ranging from 2-6cm BTL. This interface was well bonded where observed. The Nov 17th layer below the wind crust ranged from loose facets to a well bonded slab with considerable variability in hardness and thickness. This slab and the margins were our main concern. Our test results had moderate to easy failures, stepping down to basal facets. Basal facets were small with a few poorly developed depth hoar crystals in our pit location. See pit.
Avalanche
None observed since the last small natural cycle.