Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Anonymous · Jan 1, 2019 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

18” new snow, 11,000’ snorkel weather on north aspect, mid storm, no settling

Snowpack

Heavy Facets, especially on the rock band, weak supportable layer, storm snow.

Avalanche

Triggered r1/d1 to the ground on the rock band our first pitch. Slope adjacent to the right also triggered remotely from the group on he ridge. Snow was reactive, most I’ve ever seen in this zone, but did not carry a lot of energy during failure. Keeping in low angle terrain, first 2 members of our party were able to safely navigate down our ski path. Others on top widely chose to return down the skin track.