Northern San Juan
AvalancheJeff Davis Chris Bilbrey · Feb 17, 2019 · Northern San Juan
Weather
The morning started clear with few clouds, but by afternoon light snow was falling. Winds were light to moderate out of the southwest and temperatures mild.
Snowpack
The snowpack in the Ophir area is over two meters deep. Layers of concern are the interfaces between the recent storm snow in February and a buried layer of facets that persisted on the surface of the snowpack prior to the two significant storms earlier in the month. Depth-hoar and facets persist near the ground, but are deeply buried. Snowpack tests show propagating failures on the buried layer of facets about 75cms from the surface. Though the basal weak layers are deep below the surface avalanches in the surface snow could step down to the ground triggering larger D3 avalanche. A few of these larger avalanches were triggered during the last natural cycle. Strong winds created large over hanging cornices and these are good to avoid. No cracking of collapsing observed today.
Avalanche
The Ophir area saw a number of naturals during the Valentines storm. Old debris piles were covered up at the bottom of slopes in the alpine. A smaller, but more recent avalanche was observed in Nevada Gulch near treeline on a northwest facing slope.