Northern San Juan
AvalancheRyan Van Nuys · Dec 15, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
NTL: Skies trending towards Clear, Light north winds, with temps in the teens.
Snowpack
90cm total snow depth, with roughly 25 cm's of fresh snow since Thursday. This fresh snow starting to form a soft slab, sitting on our old snow surface, completely comprised of near surface facets. This interface was quite reactive in many locations and showed propagation as well. Any time spent off the established skin track produced wide spread settling, shooting cracks and if a pitch of over 35 degrees was near, often a small slide. Reactive was the word of the day.
Avalanche
Multiple small North facing convexities were triggered both directly and remotely near tree line. All slides consisted of only new snow, failing on new/old Snow interface. Largest slide was a remote trigger of the skiers left gully in Sam's trees. Slide ran from small north facing flank, into the east facing gully, and then approximately 300 hundred vertical feet down through the gully, entraining more snow from north facing flanks on its way. Crown estimated at 25 cm deep, and 30- meters wide. This slide was triggered from the adjacent east facing terrain, in the 25-30 degree range. R1D1.5