Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Dec 7, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Clear skies, calm winds and mild temperatures by afternoon. Inversions are still in full effect with very cold morning temps in the valleys.
Snowpack
The snowpack below about 10,600' is thin and fully faceted, with crusts anywhere the sun is hitting it. Higher in the BTL band, the snowpack averages around 50 cm and is all facets. There is still enough strength in the mid-lower pack to be supportable to skis, but the top 25 cm or so is completely cohesion-less. NTL conditions improve. On the north-facing slopes where I traveled, the height of snow averaged around 80 cm and there was a solid mid-pack slab ~40 cm thick. The upper 20-30 cm was still F-hard facets, but had a little more strength than in lower elevations. At the ground I found the October facet layer, and it produced propagating results with ECTs, ECTP23 and ECTP 22.
Avalanche
No new avalanches observed