Southern San Juan
AvalancheChris Bilbrey · Jan 27, 2022 · Southern San Juan
Weather
A cold start to the day with a few passing clouds in the morning. We observed a brief period of S1 snowfall for about an hour midday with obscured skies. This transitioned to broken skies and snow showers for the remainder of the tour. No measurable accumulation.
Snowpack
The upper snowpack continues to facet and weaken on east and west-facing slopes above 11,000 feet. Depth of facet growth range between 8 to 12 inches below the surface, but the mid-pack remains stout and well in tact - for now. We found facet/ crust combinations on east slopes near treeline and increasing depth of facets and larger sized grains on west slopes at the same elevation. On steep and heavily shaded west and northwest-facing slopes, we initiated a few small facet sluffs that moved quickly down the slope. A common theme exist from digging around on east aspects, faceting is more pronounced where crust are thinner and not as robust across slopes. Once we isolated the crust above facets in our snowpack test, we observed failures with taps from the wrist. Areas where the crust is thicker (around 2 inches) faceting below is not taking off like other areas, but still occurring. If the dry weather pattern persist well into February, we may see the mid-pack weaken where overall snow depths are less than a meter.
Avalanche
We triggered a few small facet sluffs on a steep northwest-facing slope near treeline that moved quickly down the slope. While these were easy to initiate with ski pressure and predictable, moving snow was confined to the top 8 to 12 inches of near-surface facets.