Southern San Juan
AvalancheAnonymous · Apr 5, 2020 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Sky cover ranged from scattered to broken, temps were quite mild and slightly cooler at higher elevations as there was also a fairly consistent, moderate wind from the SW above treeline.
Snowpack
Once again found a series of decently stout and strong crusts near the surface on southerly aspects, despite the slightly higher temps on Friday night than Thursday night. There was a very light trace of fresh snow sitting on top of the crust. The surface was much quicker to warm below and near treeline and was already transitioning to corn by noon. Above about 12,000' the moderate SW wind made it clear that it was not going to let the snow surface soften very much at all and the surface on southerly slopes at higher elevations remained barely penetrable by a ski edge even after 1:00 pm with sun filtering in and out, while boot pen never even nearly reached boot-top. The snow between 12,000' and 11,000' was growing soft on the surface by mid afternoon but had yet to become very deeply punchy; whereas the snow on southerly slopes below treeline had well passed its prime, was hollow, and moist. Observed a few fresh roller balls that had come down off of steep banks above and below Boren Creek road but nothing more. The moderate SW winds were also visibly, lightly loading northerly terrain with any snow that was available for transport from the mostly locked up alpine snow surface. This was certainly nothing too remarkable, as there was not much snow willing to be moved around; but I did notice some shallow, freshly formed wind loaded pockets, especially in one of the tighter couloirs on the north side of Babcock Peak. Dug a snowpit above treeline on a south facing, about 30 degree slope. Once again found a series of melt-freeze crusts overlying a slab of March snowfall, which sat on top of another series of melt-freeze crusts and ice layers. A compression test resulted in a CT 24, with a resistant planar fracture just below the middle of the upper three melt-freeze crusts (Only about 10 cm down). It took another tap to get the fracture to cross the column entirely and it was initially stubborn to slide off when pulled on. Got no results from any layers/interfaces deeper within the snowpack today on this slope.
Avalanche
Observed no new avalanche activity, other than the few fresh roller balls on small, steep, southerly slopes below treeline.