Southern San Juan
AvalancheChris Bilbrey · Nov 26, 2019 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Windy and cold. Skies began to break around mid-morning with periods of obscured skies. Found around 10 inches of new snow at 10,000 feet with drifts upwards of two feet.
Snowpack
Snow depth and overall snow cover continue to improve in the La Plata Mountains. Although coverage is good enough for piecing together an uphill route below 10,000 feet, lots of natural obstacles makes riding downhill a challenge. Observed plenty of evidence of blowing and drifting snow below treeline and imagine that the same if not more drifting occurred above treeline - we only climbed to 11,200 feet. Wind-drifted areas along an exposed, below treeline ridge produced isolated cracking but no audible collapses. A mid-storm graupel layer did not contribute to storm snow instability where we traveled. We observed inconclusive results in ECTs in a wind-drifted area - some test propagating in facets above a crust and others propagating half way across the block and arresting. In general, below treeline slopes point to safer avalanche conditions.
Avalanche
None observed