Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey · Apr 26, 2022 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

Sunny to start, then hazy skies moved in around midday. The haze also smelled like a camp fire so our best guess was smoke blowing in from AZ wildfires versus dust particulate. Winds increased throughout the day most noticeable along ridgetops.

Snowpack

The snow surface stayed pretty white today following recent snowfall, but brown/ dusty areas started to emerge - mostly below treeline and in wind-scoured areas near and above treeline. We found a north to south-facing slope gradient in settled storm snow at all elevations - below treeline: 3 to 5 inches (south to north), near treeline: 6 to 8 inches, above treeline: 8 to 12 inches. East to south-facing slopes started to soften up around 10 am contributing to nice corn skiing. No wet snow sluffing from ski pressure on above treeline slopes, but we initiated some long-running rollerballs on southerly slopes near treeline that, to our surprise, did not entrain additional wet snow. Westerly slopes had a 1 to 3 inch crust from yesterday's sun and warmth, and those aspects stayed mostly locked up from overcast skies and increasing southwest wind. The snowpack remains mostly dry and winter-like on northerly slopes above treeline. We did find refrozen meltwater about 50 cm's below the surface mostly likely from last weeks big warmup. Total snow height at our quick pit on a north slope in the alpine was 257 cm deep. Recent snowfall has bonded well to various old snow surfaces across many aspects/ elevations and we pondered if the dust-laded surface helped bonding? We did initiate some minor loose dry sluffs above 12,500 feet that did not travel more than 30 feet down the slope. The snow surface got moist enough on northerly slopes near and below treeline to make a snowball, but we could not initiate any loose wet sluffs with ski pressure on steeper convexities.

Avalanche

Small/ isolated Loose Wet avalanches above treeline on east to south through west-facing slopes yesterday. Only rollerball activity today on east aspects from morning sunshine. We triggered a couple minor (D 0.5) loose dry sluffs running above a hard layer, but only traveled around 30 feet down the slope.