Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Feb 6, 2021 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Clear skies, cool temperatures and light NW winds. A pleasant mid-winter day in the mountains.
Snowpack
We traveled north, east, south and southeast aspects near and above treeline. Recent snows had settled into a 4-finger layer of rounds and DF's around 25 cm deep. Winds had compacted and redistributed this layer, but we didn't find any wind crusts or evidence of harder slabs. Very little blowing snow in this area today, but plumes could be seen coming off of peaks to the north and west. On east through south aspects, the recent snow sat over a supportable crust formed during warm weather earlier in the week. Structure is still concerning, and strong over weak layering was evident with pole probing, but mid and upper snowpack layers have clearly gained a lot of strength over the past two weeks. We didn't experience any cracking, collapsing or other signs of instability on our tour, and snowpack tests were either unreactive or unremarkable. Below treeline northeast-facing terrain was supportable and fairly well-consolidated.
Avalanche
Small D1 wind slab triggered by cornice fall