Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Below TL, the recent storm snow is showing signs of both settlement and faceting. Sun affected slopes had moist surface snow as high as 11,500' today, with cold, dry, near-surface-faceted snow lingering in trees and shadier aspects. Westerly and Northwesterly aspects below treeline continue to whumph, but collapses are becoming localized to smaller areas (to 30 ft on W'ly and to 50ft on NW'ly). A pit dug on Saturday on an ESE aspect BTL at 11,600 showed many weak layers, but noteworthy was a crust-facet sandwich with sudden failures down 10inches, and ECTP11 down 19 inches, on well developed facets from the early December storm. Whumphs were propagating farther in the slabbier E and SE aspects BTL, with collapses propagating to 130 ft. Good skiing remains but warm temps are rapidly affecting ski quality on solar aspects.