Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Dec 23, 2019 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Overcast day with mild temperatures and very light winds. A little cooler than the last couple of days, without much solar input.
Snowpack
From Coal Bank to West Lime the snowpack was pretty similar, a right-side up snowpack with a layer of Fsf buried about 20 cm down. I was surprised by the lack of a pronounced melt-freeze crust after this weekend's warmup. The top 10-15 cm of the snowpack was f-4f rounding facets in all locations, with just a few patches of very thin M/F crust. Even Henry Brown was not crusted over. This surface layer showed some cohesion, and I could make a snowball, but not a very convincing one... The deeper facets buried by recent snows were still visible and palpable, but were not performing on tests. CTH BRK at both Coal Bank and West Lime on this layer. The surface facets will be a concern with any substantial load.
Avalanche
No new activity observed