Northern San Juan
SnowpackBill Nalli · Mar 25, 2022 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Sunny and warm with a light NW breeze
Snowpack
Below treeline sheltered, shady terrain is having to adjust to this warm up period at a faster rate than near and above treeline. The snow surface became damp by mid day even on the due north aspects. The pit we dug at 11,600' on a sheltered NNW facing slope highlights the poor structure that still exists even this late into March. A 50cm thick, 1F to P hard slab rests above 4F hard, rounding facets. The rounding would seem to indicate strengthening but the clean shears and abrupt hardness and grain-size change leave me to be very suspect of this layering. Where this structure exists careful consideration should be used and avoidance may still be the best option. Higher up above treeline, past wind seems to be the most important factor with stability. Much leeward terrain consists of softening sastrugi and is generally stable. Numerous booby-traps exist where pockets of top and cross-loaded terrain are fat and rest on old weak snow like in the attached pic on the west face of Ohio Peak. In the alpine, todays light breeze helped to control the warming at the snow surface and only the top few centimeters became damp on the most sun exposed slopes.