Northern San Juan
AvalancheMike Barney · Mar 8, 2021 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Overcast skies till 2pm became broken and then a few clouds by 3:30pm. Light winds with moderate gusts out of the southwest and 36 degrees Fahrenheit.
Snowpack
The snowpack on a west aspect at 10,000 feet near Eureka was 70 to 80 cm deep and had percolation columns to the ground. There was a skiff of new snow and around 10cm of frozen snow in our newest melt-freeze crust. The snowpack has large facets in the bottom 45cm of the pack but a 5 to 6mm, 10cm thick depth hoar layer that is 15 to 25cm off the ground is the layer of concern(12/11) The 12/11 Layer was stubborn here today because no water was moving through the snowpack. I observed hard propagating extended column test and compression test results on this layer.
Avalanche
One loose wet avalanche was observed that likely ran on 3/4/21 on a south aspect off of Eureka Mountain and was small in size but ran about 800 vertical feet.