Northern San Juan
SnowpackAmy Pertuz · Apr 13, 2023 · Northern San Juan
Weather
A mix of sun and clouds with occasional greenhousing from high thin clouds. Temperatures were a bit cooler and moderate west to southwest winds helped cool surfaces.
Snowpack
Below-treeline west and northwest -facing slopes here had a lot of wet and moist snow in the upper 80cm. I was able to get moderate to hard failures in compression tests on the two main wet layers of concern (~30 cm deep and 55 cm deep) but I had mixed results getting propagation on these layers in Extended Column Tests. I did get a ECTP (22 taps)on the upper of these two layers (33 cm below the surface, moist) on a NW aspect above treeline, though the snow here will refreeze and strengthen fairly quickly with less saturated snow there. I saw existing cracks on southerly and westerly slopes experienced occasional shooting crack cracks to 2-4 meters long and ~60-80cm deep on westerly slopes near and below treeline. I would not have skied steep below treeline slopes in this area.