Northern San Juan
SnowpackMatt Huber · Jan 26, 2024 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Clouds covered the sky for most of the morning, breaking to partly cloudy skies and little to no wind by noon. The storm board had four inches new overnight with thirty inches on the seasonal snow stake.
Snowpack
The snowpack here remains very thin. Shooting cracks and collapsing can be observed on most northerly aspects near and below treeline, but the slabs are inconsistent, disconnected, and not stiff enough to produce slab avalanches in the areas I traveled. The biggest concerns presently are full depth, loose dry avalanching on steep northerly-facing slopes. The last week of incremental snowfall is sitting on an obvious layer of buried near surface facets and surface hoar. This layer presents dramatically, but the layer of concern is the well-developed basal deth hoar.