Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Mar 30, 2023 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Very windy especially in the morning. Mostly clear skies to start, increasing through the day. There was still snow being transported onto northerly slopes. Hard slabs were developing just below ridgetop. The storm came in around 1 PM with short bursts of heavy snow.

Snowpack

Quick ob from a recreation trip. There was a good freeze of the snow surface on Wednesday night with long periods of mostly clear skies overnight. Melt freeze crusts were up to 1 inch thick. Under the crusts was dry snow. Below about 10,500 feet, all aspects except maybe due north had some surface crust. I dug on a northwest-facing slope below treeline at 10,500 feet and found a snowpack with a depth of about 135 cm. There were multiple buried crusts, but not extensive faceting around these crusts. The most reactive interface was 30 cm down from the surface on small facets above a melt-freeze crust. I got a result of ECPT11. The 30 cm slab has settled into a four-finger hard cohesive slab. There was a thin (~1cm thick) crust at the surface. I got one collapse on an open slope at a similar aspect and elevation. No cracks appeared with the collapse, so it was hard to tell if it was slope wide. It was enough for me to change my route though. I probed on some other aspects and generally found a snow height of 130 to 150 cm below treeline.