Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Jeff Davis · Apr 18, 2021 · Northern San Juan

View on map

Weather

Beautiful, sunny, and calm spring day.

Snowpack

Around 3 inches of snow fell near Red Mountain pass in the past 24 hours. That brings 3 day snow totals to approximately 9 inches. The new snow fell on a frim snow-surface on a snowpack that is deep into the spring transition. Strong solar radiation and warm ambient air temperatures quickly settled and melted the snow on sunny and lower elevation slopes. At upper elevations on shady north-facing slopes the new snow stayed dry but did not appear to be slabby. New snow drifts over a foot deep were observed but did not react to ski pressure. With light winds no snow was observed drifting off upper peaks. It is hard to know if this storm came with more dust or its just the previous dust on the surface, but lots of brown on slopes out there. In general, the new snow did not add to the overall avalanche hazard.

Avalanche

I observed a few small loose sluffs that appeared to be rider-triggered in extreme terrain. Very little wet activity, but I was out of the mountains by early afternoon.