Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Susan Hale · Jan 13, 2017 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Warm temps(29-30F), light snow off and on, light southerly winds. Moisture being forced up from a closed low south of New Mexico -- has been bringing incremental snowfall to our passes. Expecting more moderate snowfall over next few days depending on track of the low.

Snowpack

HS of 200cm is deep for this particular path. Upper 1/3 of snowpack is very recent snow events - Jan - this is still settling. Upper instabilities seen in the pit will likely heal over time. The rest of the pack is stout. This is good and bad - meaning we are dealing with mostly storm instabilities in the short term...bad in that we are gaining more volume here - and more spring problems...?

Avalanche

Recent test shots in this particular location have produced only shallow results, leaving the volume to build up. The HS depth is greater than we've seen in 10 years without getting better explosive triggered avalanche results.