Northern San Juan
AvalancheLuca Doehling · Mar 1, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Moderate South West wind with S1 (light) snowfall. Moderate blowing snow was depositing on NE aspect and building a small cornice.
Snowpack
On the NE ridge at 11600 in hand pits we found a thin snowpack with well developed depth hoar (biggest crystals were around 1.5cm) at the ground above rocks that had a slab of wind deposited snow and wind slab resting on top. Although this is not surprising I would be aware of isolated windslab on thin snowpack if you are planning on getting into the alpine. We decided not to ski from the summit.
Avalanche
On the larger skiers right path of King Solomon we saw an R1 D1.5 at 11400 on the NW aspect. The slide seemed to fail in wind affected snow on a thin spot of rocks on a rollover and must have happened within the past few days. There was a traverse track just above. The crown was only a few inches but the slide was about a foot deep on the flank.