Southern San Juan
SnowpackChris Bilbrey · Jan 13, 2020 · Southern San Juan
Weather
We found between 5 to 8 inches of new snow in the latest storm above 3 to 5 inches from 1/9. A mixture of obscured and overcast skies gave way to clearing in the early afternoon. Winds were moderate with strong gusts along exposed ridges out of the west. This easily drifted the low-density snow into waist-deep drifts below ridge and cornices. The northern half of the range was socked in and looked stormy longer than the southern edge of range.
Snowpack
The snowpack in the lower portion of below treeline (below 10,000 feet) elevation is weakening and faceting all the way to the ground on all aspects. Once you climb above 10,000 feet, advanced faceting confined to the top 30 cm's and most pronounced on east, southeast, and south-facing slopes. Despite a weakening upper snowpack, long column test below treeline didn't produce propagating test results. Isolated surface cracking in the storm snow only in deeper drifted areas below treeline. Lots of blowing and drifting snow near and above treeline with some drifts waist deep. We saw several small, soft slab avalanches that released naturally on northeast, east, and southeast-facing slopes, but didn't produce wide propagation. Although small in size, they did entrained a lot of snow during the downhill movement. We easily triggered several additional soft storm slab avalanches on an east-facing slope at treeline while walking along the ridge top. These were confined to heavily drifted areas and not widespread. Slow moving sluffs in steeper wind-sheltered northerly terrain easily gouged down into faceted snow below, but we found it to be generally harmless.