Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Jeremy Yanko · Apr 25, 2022 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Mostly clear with a light breeze and moderated warm up

Snowpack

Snow surfaces stayed cold at lower elevations until after 1pm then gave way to moist sticky travel on the exit move. HN24 measured 12cm at this location with a widespread coating of surface hoar formed between 10-12,000ft overnight. No slab characteristics were found in the recent storms accumulated over the weekend nor much evidence of suspect wind-drifted pockets in concave features or start zones. The old snow surface held a brown hue which was easy to push your boot into the top 15cm as it partially froze, though locked up into solid melt-freeze layering below. Few Loose-Wet slides were seen from this location or nearby believing the new snow is seeing a balanced adjustment due to a light but consistent breeze, staggered settlement and intermittent cloud cover. No red flag signs of instability were observed and all loose-wet sluffs were small or very insignificant.

Avalanche

Handful of small loose-wet point releases that fanned out in the aprons below steep rocky terrain around the 13,000ft band.