Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Dickson · Dec 8, 2021 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Low clouds and light snowfall and calm winds in the morning, but as I headed down snowfall intensity picked up, the clouds dropped even lower, and the wind speeds started to increase. The storm seemed to arrive a bit earlier than forecast.

Snowpack

Dug in below treeline (11,200’, N Aspect, 25 degree slope) and found 90cms of snow. Snow pit revealed a mostly faceted snowpack, with a fragile crust below 15cms of new snow. Did a CT and got a PC fracture at the new snow/old snow interface. ECT resulted in a ECTN11 on that same interface, with a fracture that failed to propagate across the column. Where I dug, the new snow did not show slabby characteristics, and I did not observe any cracking or collapsing throughout my tour. The snow that was just buried is extremely weak on northerly aspects, with to-the-bottom ski and boot pen. Also, dug a hasty pit ATL (11,400’) on a NE aspect and found similar weak snow below a crust below the new snow.

Avalanche

A light ski cut on a steeper NE-facing slope triggered the entire snowpack of facets to the ground, resulting in a D1 loose dry avy. Also, D1-sized stuffs were observed coming out of steep alpine couloirs.