Northern San Juan
SnowpackJeremy Yanko · Feb 8, 2022 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Warm yet steady N/NW breeze with big gusts seemed to balance out the ambient temperature.
Snowpack
Hovered around the 10,500-11k elevation band checking out surfaces and snowpack structures. In this valley, east facing @ 10,200ft HS:55cm held thin layer (10cm) of 2mm facets on the ground, a mid pack body of rounded 1F grains capped off with 15cm facets. A faint 1F- faceted crust is still detectable underneath 16cm of DF/FCsf. Open wind exposed terrain near the 11k mark on east have variable surfaces; wind abraded DF, FCsf in subtle gully features and blown out old surfaces of up to 30cm Knife hard slabs. Across this east slope, HS ranged from 110-200cm. Found steep creek bank (HS 80cm) to still be supportable to skis but easy to push the recent storm snow off of 4F- mid pack slab below. Ski pen 35cm and boot 60 cm. Headed over to west aspect between 1:30 and 3:00 pm. The top 10cm was moist by time of departure. Various crust lenses with some moist facets between comprise the upper 40cm. The holiday slab is hanging in there and nearly homogenous to the ground with only one thin faceted interface of concern @58cm. Hard snowpack test scores were recorded (CT22/CT24 RP, ECTN#26 @115cm). As most slopes, the main threat lies on or near the surface when the next decent snow event goes down.