Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Rowan Kinney · Jan 7, 2021 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

clear and sunny

Snowpack

about 130 cm in top of grandmas, more than 150 cm where the avalanche happened.

Avalanche

The first headwall below grandfather couloir above commodore gulch. This is a north east/east facing slope. We were about 150 yards above the crown when we triggered it. When it released all three of us were standing close together in a relatively flat snow field away from the potential runouts of any slides above us. we heard a loud whompfing sound and we saw some cracks that ran from us but we didn't see anything run. Someone on the other side of the bowl said "oh my god" although we didn't realize what they were talking about or looking at until later. We didn't know what had happened until we had climbed to a ramp and looked back and saw them. The first avalanche triggered a second moderate avalanche more than 50 feet to the side. There was evidence of continued sympathetic fracturing as much as 500 yards from the crown of the first avalanche. The first avalanche was probably R3-4, D1-2. Almost the whole path ran. The crown was 75-90 cm deep, the remaining pack was 30-40 cm. This was just above tree line. It showed some signs of wind loading. The debris field was clearly deep enough to burry a person.