Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Colin Mitchell · Mar 18, 2020 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Overcast and warm with very light snow starting around 12 pm, and light to moderate south winds.

Snowpack

The snow surface here was a moist, soft melt-freeze crust that bent and sometimes collapsed under my skis. The biggest concern was a layer of moist, rounding facets down about 25 cm, but it showed little reactivity to tests. CT12PC, and ECTN13. Below this was a thick, largely impenetrable layer of melt-freeze crusts and ice masses, topping about a meter of moist, rounding facets with large, well-formed percolation columns. Other than the buried facets near the surface, a very solid snowpack. Water has penetrated to the ground and the snowpack is draining. Lower layers are moist, but still have not begun to transition to melt forms.

Avalanche

No new activity observed today.