Northern San Juan
Quick reportJulia Vorsteveld · Jan 16, 2026 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Clear skies with temperatures were in the low 30's, with wind gusting out of the north west, and transporting snow.
Snowpack
We looked deeper into the snowpack in a wind drifted area on a east facing slope near treeline, at about 11,600.' Even in this wind drifted area, we only found 45cm of snow composed of weak snow: large faceting grains. A centimeter thick crust was about 10cm below the surface, and soft fist-hard snow was found above and below this crust. In an extended column test, we got failure on depth hoar buried 20cm deep (ECTN13). Digging above tree-line at 12,300' on an east aspect in another wind-drifted area painted a different picture. Layers of soft, faceted snow are sandwiched between multiple knife hard crusts, some of which were composed of ice formations. Even within this test pit, variability in snowpack composition was present. In an extended column test, our result was on isolation at a wind crust near the surface (ECTPV), and further loading steps produced no further results (ECTX).