Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey Jeff Davis · Feb 7, 2020 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Obscured skies, light to moderate northwest winds that decreased throughout our tour, and on and off snowfall with little accumulations during the day - or at least compared to the previous 24 hour period.

Snowpack

We found 16 to 20 inches of new snow that was slightly upside-down. End of storm snow densities did not appear significantly higher than at the start of the storm, but did make for some difficult trail breaking. Winds were not distributing storm snow below treeline but as we climbed closer to the near treeline band, effects of drifting more obvious. Lots of isolated collapsing below our skis but none produce long-running surface cracks. We did observe En echelon cracking while jumping on a steep, northwest-facing test slope near treeline. The slope did not slide but stability test after confirmed the reactive nature of the new/ old interface. With a lot of new snow, we avoided heavily drifted areas and steeper terrain along with terrain traps or gullies.

Avalanche

None observed today.