Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Jan 2, 2021 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Chilly day with light and variable winds. Skies were mostly cloudy in the morning, but cleared as the day went on.
Snowpack
We traveled near-and below-treeline slopes on north, east, and southeast aspects. Near treeline SE slopes recent snows were sitting on a stout crust with facets beneath, and a facet/crust layer cake beneath that. We had one significant collapse around 12,000'. Maybe 100' across, otherwise no signs of instability. Height of snow averaged around 90 cm. Northerly aspects near treeline, the facets below the 10/11 interface were easy to find around 50 cm down with ski pole probing, but we didn't get any collapsing or cracking, except for a few tiny cracks around our skis. Below treeline east-facing slopes had a 4F hard slab over lots of F-hard facets and depth hoar. A few sunnier spots had some surface and buried crusts.
Avalanche
These two slides ran sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning.