Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Josh Hirshberg · Nov 22, 2013 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Overcast to obscured skies and snow all day. Warm and calm. Snowfall rates pushed over 1"/hr (S3) at times, but generally in the S1-S2 range.

Snowpack

Snowpack was supportive while skiing down, less so while skinning, and not at all standing w/o skis. Saw some minor sluffing of the new snow on test slopes >35°, but not very reactive. In general, found fairly well bonded new snow with some localized instabilities within the storm. </br>Notable was a defined 1cm layer of graupel that likely fell in the early AM. This layer produced repeatable sudden fractures in snowpack tests. But again, it did not seem to be widespread. Most concerning were the facets buried a week ago which are now down 60-70cm and have overlying slabs. Compresion tests showed repeatable sudden collapse result at this interface. </br>Avg HS was 100cm. HST 43cm (and quickly accumulating). Ski pen averaged 25cm. Boot pen was 70cm in a 81cm snowpack.