Northern San Juan
AvalancheJeff Davis · Jan 2, 2025 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Light snow flurries followed by mostly clear skies. Temperatures were mild with little wind.
Snowpack
I dug two snowpits during today's outing. The first was on an east slope at 11,000' near where I remotely triggered an avalanche, which was followed by digging a snowpit on Saturday. The first thing that jumped out at me was the storm snow had settled 15 cm in this area. The snow at the bottom of the storm snow stiffened from fist to four-finger minus. Extended Column tests still produced propagating results within the old snow but now at 21 taps vs. 14 taps 5 days ago. Boot pen is to ground, highlighting how weak the snowpack is. Trigging avalanches below treeline appears to be getting more stubborn, but with even a slight hardness change in the most recent and old faceted snow, triggering an avalanche seems possible on steep, shady slopes. The second snowpit was on a southeast slope around 12,000'. This snowpack was just under a meter deep, and though there was a difference in hardness in the new/old snowpack tests did not produce many results. Compression tests produced hard failures, and Extended Column Tests produced ECTX x2. There is a crust at the new old interface that the most recent snow seems bonded to. The basel layers are weak and made of all facets, but in a strange way, right-side upish facets. The snowpack felt less hollow on this southeast slope and boot penetration was 40 cm's.
Avalanche
No natural avalanche activity was observed from Monday's wind event.