Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Jeremy Yanko, Mike Barney · Jan 1, 2022 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Mostly clear skies overhead with a lingering haze. Cloud ceiling backing in and lowering to the north. Chilly

Snowpack

We traveled on east, southeast, south and some small pitch northeast terrain. Nice 15cm of fluff on the surface with little wind effect noticed BTL on both windward and cross loaded slopes. Pole probing, hand shears and isolating hasty columns on the up track and ongoing during the trip, revealed some density changes in the top 30-40 cm but proved to be unreactive on test slopes (E,SE,S,NE). No cracking or collapsing was observed on all slopes traveled on between ~10k and 11,600 ft. We isolated and performed a large column test on a nearly due East aspect HS 155cm. Results/scores were ECTX and STM@40cm RP on a thin 1F- faceted crust. The top 75 cm had no discernible layers and believe it to be the culmination of the last four of six day storm period. The thin crust lense developed on 12/25 (down 85cm) and noticeable dust layer above were non reactive with tests performed. The layer of primary concern at present is located 105cm down from the surface and could be an issue if one were to impact a thinner margin of the slab. The snow near the ground was not ultra weak- made up of rounded-faceted grains. Boot pen:70cm Ski pen:35cm.