Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Becs Hodgetts · Mar 15, 2021 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Winds only started picked up around 3pm. Clear skies in the am clouded up through the afternoon with a stray snow shower moving through.

Snowpack

I traveled all elevations today on north, south, and southeast aspects. Above treeline there was clear evidence of prior wind drifting snow and cross-loading gullies. By noon all aspects to 12 000’ had surface snow moisture. Moist snow existed 5-10cm below the surface. Wind drifts were soft and not reactive to ski cuts. Very small loose dry avalanches were noted from extreme terrain and very small loose wet avalanches were noted below treeline. I dug on a near treeline southeast-facing slope. There were several crust/facet combos in the upper third of the snowpack. On one of these combos (35cm below the surface), ECTN24 did not propagate across the column. These layers may become problematic for Wet Slab Avalanches if we see a rapid warmup. Below treeline, only north aspects surface snow was still dry at 4 pm.

Avalanche

A few R2D1.5 Loose Dry Avalanches on northwest above treeline slopes that likely ran during the storm.