Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Colin Mitchell · Feb 4, 2022 · Northern San Juan

View on map

Weather

Clear and cold morning, but warming quickly in the higher terrain. Temperatures topped out near freezing in the afternoon, but it wasn't enough to warm the snow surface.

Snowpack

We ascended E-SE slopes to treeline. We found 15-25 cm of 4f- recent snow on top of old crusts and wind slabs. We experienced several large collapses on these aspects. A facet/crust combination at the old/new interface appeared to be the culprit. The recent snows are getting more cohesive, and we had some localized cracking around our skis in this layer, but no propagation. On northerly, high elevation slopes, we found around 40 cm of F-4f snow on top of a firm slab, and no signs of instability.

Avalanche

One D1 sluff on the north face of Red 1, probably ran yesterday.