Northern San Juan
AvalancheAnonymous · Jan 18, 2014 · Northern San Juan
Snowpack
Snow almost the entire way up to the summit, except for south facing clearings below 9600 feet. Higher up the HS increased to about 2 feet in the shade (still somewhat south though) to 6 inches in the sun with a crust.
Avalanche
We made it to treeline on the south ridge of the peak, and could see a slab that released to the west. Upon closer inspection it looked like an animal or very bad skier was in the creek below and may have triggered it. Sometime between when we crested treeline and when we skied, two SE facing (slopes) slid in the gullies. The bowls were intact with snow as we looked up from below on the approach, but as we looked down from the summit we could see debris that wasn’t there on the climb. Between the two bowls were big animal tracks. We weren’t even on the snow nearby on the ascent. We hiked the dry west slope to the summit.