Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Jeremy Yanko · Mar 10, 2022 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Crisp day with showers on and off. Showing signs of clearing by 3pm but low clouds backing in from West.

Snowpack

HN24 28cm in Telluride around 10-11k. HN24 22cm East Ophir 10-11k. No new slab development found near or below treeline. Could achieve some big sluffs on steep East-facing terrain running on old crusted surfaces. A few cloud breaks allowed for some eyes on the alpine but no new natural activity observed. Focus of the trip was to gather persistent-slab reactivity/trend for some of the western portions of the North San Juan. Essentially, thicker the slab over the layer of concern equals more indications of rounding and more snowpack test scores heading the right direction. This layer seemingly will haunt us for sometime as it took 7 weeks to develop over a faceted slab beneath. Traveling in previously undisturbed areas continues to give instability feedback by several large rumbling collapses (shaking trees) and some cracking as well, when moving through the flats and the lower elevations specifically.

Avalanche

Used an old "bank slip" avalanche (estimated to have run around 2/23) bed surface to attain a bench out of the creek. This slide still held a panel of 2 week old hangfire which released upon the second step taken on it. It was a very isolated and small release but 1.5 deep and certainly enough to stuff a person down in the creek.