Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Dug on a SW aspect BTL on the south side of Carbon Knob just above CR14. HS 97cm. CT11 (SC). ECTP22. Both down 53cm at the top of the January 4th facet layer. Down 31cm we had a failure on the interface between the January 4th and January 13th storms during a shovel shear. I've had this layer pop out on shovel shears in all of the pits I've dug over the last week on several aspects, but I've never had it fail during CT's or ECT's. Myself and others have been digging around on all aspects including souths near and below treeline over the last few weeks and we have found consistent strong over weak structure with propagating results on souths, quite similar to those we are finding on more northerly aspects. It seems anywhere that a snowpack was preserved during the December drought, there is now a persistent slab structure, regardless of aspect or elevation, in the Red Mountain Pass area.