Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Mark Gober · Mar 17, 2017 · Northern San Juan

Weather

High clouds from 0830-1040 or so then cleared off. Blue skies for remainder of tour. PC skies in Silverton at 1430. Warm enough that our local herd of elk were all at 13k. 30-40 of them around this drainage today.

Snowpack

High cloud cover in morning hours kept surfaces frozen a bit longer than the past few days. Once I got into alpine, it was sunny and snow began to soften rapidly. On ascent, in shallow areas near exposed ground, I was getting full collapsing of the pack around my skis, but the snow depth was only 35-45cm and collapses did not propagate (see picture). Above 12,800 it was all transitioning to a springlike pack and had a solid surface (trying to corn up though) and good, rounded grains that weren't wet in slab underneath. Below 12,800 all the surfaces were wet but had a solid freeze underneath that diminished in thickness as I descended and snowpack consisted of wetted, isothermal grains. I remained on SE-SW aspects and did not venture onto the colder, north aspects.