Southern San Juan

Snowpack

Kerry Hanes · Apr 28, 2014 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

Light, occasionally moderate snowfall all day. OAT in low-mid 20'sF during whole mid-day tour.

Snowpack

SSE faces of the moraine benches were heavily loaded. Within the new storm snow, over a foot below surface in many areas, we encountered numerous collapses and had productive climbing ski cuts of about 3-4' soft slabs of snow between uptracks. Also observed 2 shooting cracks of less than 10'. The weak interface within the new storm snow here is similar to the pit analysis of ECTP 1, sudden collapse, obtained on different aspects of Sams Trees near RMP a day earlier. 24-hrs later, on lee slopes at Molas, there was a lot more snow on top of that interface, compared to day earlier on Sam's Trees.