Northern San Juan
AvalancheKrista Beyer · Jan 5, 2024 · Northern San Juan
Weather
The day started with moderate temperatures and calm winds. By early afternoon winds picked up from the north and clouds started to move in to the north and west of the CDT while the Divide itself stayed in a pocket of blue skies. Sustained winds of 10-15mph lingered for the remainder of the afternoon.
Snowpack
The snowpack is on trend with the rest of the Silverton area with the major descriptor words of shallow and weak. In areas with total snow depths less than 2ft, the snowpack has become fully faceted with ski penetration nearly to the ground. North and east-facing terrain is generally deeper with more connected snow coverage. Digging on a north-facing slope just shy of 13,000 ft, I found a mid-pack structure of hard windlayers, and weak facets. About 15cm of large grain facets remain at the ground. Snowpack test results produced no propagating results on any of the midpack weak layers, but some easy non-propagating failures in the new drifted snow and moderate non-propagating failures in the top 35 cm. A knife hard dirty crust formed in the top 40 cm of the pack, perhaps a localized anomaly. The pack seems to have two cohesive blocks, one above the crust and one below.
Avalanche
Area had more evidence of a widespread avalanche cycle around December 26th. Slides were small and isolated to crossloaded wind features.