Northern San Juan
AvalancheWyatt Gober · Jan 7, 2023 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Weather was calm, clear, and after a cold morning it warmed up nicely. BTL there was mild softening of the snow surface on southerly aspects. No wind, few high cirrus clouds, lots of solar radiation.
Snowpack
We dug a practice pit on a NW aspect NTL and just off the Minnehaha road. We found stubborn to no instability results, with two ECTX's and CT scores in the 20's. All the sudden collapses were under a soft melt freeze crust. We skied an adjacent south facing slope that had ~20cm of new snow on top of a supportive crust layer and denser snow under the crust. There was surrounding avalanche activity from before the storm two nights ago higher up the ridge from where we skied.
Avalanche
This is an avalanche from, presumably, two or three days ago. Not sure if it has been submitted before. Crown looked ~15-30 cm, ran ~200-300 ft, and ~800-1000ft wide. It was long propagating avalanche, and the crown line rolled over many minor terrain features.