Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Patrick Ormond · Jan 7, 2015 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Warm, light winds, super nice.

Snowpack

Cooler temps than yesterday. Most snow surfaces were still dry. We did ski a few turns of corn on high S aspect into Prospect. Lower angled southerly slopes had dry powder, good skiing.

Avalanche

We saw two avalanches estimated from 1/6/15, both suspected snowmobile triggered. One was in upper Prospect Basin, 12,000', E aspect, D2, on a mid slope steep rollover, and appeared to be triggered from below by cutting across the base of the slope. The other was in Minnehaha Basin, 12,400', W aspect, D3. We could see snowmobile highmarks that got closer and closer to the base of the debris. Suspect triggered from below. Viewed from Putney ridge, 3.5 miles away, so it must have been pretty big to see so clearly.