Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Anonymous · May 21, 2011 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Overcast. light snow

Snowpack

Horseshoe Basin. base elev 9600'...climbed to 11,800. mostly N-NW aspect. new snow 4-6". up to about 10,000' new snow over previous bed surface. to 11,000' new snow over 20cm saturated snowpack on top of 1cm knife hard melt/freeze layer. this stuff was ready to go if the sun would have come out. lots of previous wet slabs under the new snow. over 11,000' it was pretty much a winter snowpack w/ big cornices on the east facing cirques. no obvious slabs, but with the saturated layer in the middle, i wasn't trusting anything steep. skied moderate terrain