Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Bill Nalli Chris Bilbrey · Nov 24, 2019 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Another calm and clear pleasant day in the mountains.

Snowpack

It seems that slightly less snow has fallen in Upper Cement Creek than near Red Mt. Pass with the last storm. Snow depths on north and east aspects range from 30 to 60 cm. Overall it is still supportable and consistent enough to travel on skis and good riding conditions exist in wind sheltered areas. We continue to find a poor structure everywhere old October snow exists. A four finger hard slab 20 to 40 cm thick sits on top of about 20 cm of depth hoar. It has still not adjusted to the new load and fails when the scales are tipped with the weight of a person. The slab has begun to deteriorate however and stability tests were inconsistent. One compression test failed upon isolation and the next at CT2. An ECTN2 in the same location showed similar weak structure but we could not get any to propogate across the column. The cold clear nights are causing the slab to become less cohesive and ultimately creating the next weak layer. The snow surface has also begun to deteriorate and now consists of 2mm fist hard facets. Surface hoar was noted at lower elevations and valley bottoms.

Avalanche

None observed