Southern San Juan
AvalancheAnonymous · May 5, 2020 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Mild to warm temps, clear and sunny skies, calm wind with some light SW gusts.
Snowpack
8”-10” thick, firm crust capping moist and wet snow at all elevations in the morning. The surface crust was thicker and stronger in deeper areas on more open terrain features; while in more confined, Rocky, and vegetated areas, it was much quicker to soften and generally thinner in the first place. It remained fairly firm and supportable as the day began to warm up, except for in those isolated areas of warmer and shallower snow, as well as below treeline.
Avalanche
The most recent and significant avalanche we observed today was a shallow wet slab avalanche that ran nearly the entire length of a near and above treeline, SE slope on Burwell Peak and it likely ran on Thursday or Friday last week or over the last weekend. It appeared to be triggered by a rock fall from the cliff above or a loose wet slide that began above that, as there were quite a few small roller balls and rocks scattered around the crown. From where the slide released, the fracture propagated about a meter to looker’s left and at least 5 meters to looker’s right, underneath a small rock outcropping. It ran at least a thousand vertical feet and some of the chucks near the toe were nearly three cubic feet in size.