Southern San Juan
SnowpackBecs Hodgetts · Mar 24, 2021 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Snow moving in and out. Light and small flakes. The occasional gust of wind, but otherwise calm. Felt warmer than 24F. Snow surface stayed cold.
Snowpack
Traveled below and near treeline on south and southeast aspects. In all areas that had seen the sun before this storm, a 3-8cm thick melt-freeze crust is present under the new snow. New snow depths ranged from 3-6 inches, depending on where you were on the slope. In thick trees, the average snow depth was 1m, and we completely facetted to the ground. Boot pen averaged 50cm. Snow depths ranged from 2m in wind drifted areas to 1m. I chose to dig in a shallower area, as buried weak layers would be closer to the surface and more likely to react in snow pit tests. Near treeline, on southeast slopes, 4 inches of new snow had bonded well to an 8cm thick, pencil hard melt-freeze crust. Beneath this crust were layers of rounding facets sandwiched between further crusts. The lower 30cm of the snowpack consisted of moist, fist-hard rounding depth hoar. Snowpack tests failed at the interface between the upper crust and facets below. CT tests failed very easy(RP) on this interface and ECTN13 to the column's end. As the stronger layer above the facets is a thick melt-freeze crust, I would be more concerned with avalanches running on the crust's surface than a Persistent Slab Avalanche at the crust/facet interface. The percolation columns were noted in the upper 50cm of the snow cover. It was easy to make a snowball with moist rounding basal depth hoar. Facet layers in the middle of the snow cover were still dry.