Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Mark Gober · Jan 17, 2013 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Drastic change from a couple of days ago. At TL it was mild and not a breath of wind, except for an occasional gust of 3mph.

Snowpack

I dug a pit at TL on a NE aspect. The top 7 cm was a pencil hard wind slab sitting on 3 cm of new/decomposing snow which rested on the remainder of this seasons faceted snow. ECTPV on the interface in between the old snow and new. While not a concern where I was currently, this slab will not go away anytime soon and will be a layer of concern with any additional load. Where this slab is thicker it poses a immediate threat to be an easily triggerable slab that would step down into facets. This brings up the challenge I saw out there. The spottiness of these alabs and their thickness will be hard to determine, especially once they get buried-(hoping they do). An interesting note-my ascent climbed NE facing trees and in the last 500' before TL the wind had affected the snow in the woods. There were lenses of hard slab wherever there was a slight alley for the wind to blow through. These too will be an issue once buried. Most would collapse on me, but they were all fairly isolated and none were contiguous over a broad area.