Southern San Juan

Snowpack

Matt Huber · Dec 18, 2020 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

Broken cloud cover for most of the trip producing light snow showers and little additional accumulations. Winds were mostly calm but evidence of previously drifted snow from northerly winds earlier in the week and more recent southwesterly winds

Snowpack

The snowpack near treeline ranges between 100 to 150 centimeters. On a southeastern facing slope at 11,600 feet, I found 35 cm's of recent snow, (since 12/11), sitting on a thin crust with a layer of 4-Finger hard, 2 mm facets directly below. Below this persistent weak layer, the snowpack is right-side up, mainly rounds (some faceting occurred during the early December high pressure) and unreactive. At the 12/11 layer, extended column tests are improving but continue to propagate across the block. ECTP19 as compared to ECTP6-7earlier in the week on the same aspect.