Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Mar 16, 2022 · Northern San Juan
Weather
The day started with scattered to broken skies, seasonal temperatures and light southwesterly winds. Cloud cover and winds increased from midday on, and by 2 o'clock we had overcast skies, and moderate, gusty, southwest winds. The cloud deck lowered, and was beginning to obscure the surrounding peaks.
Snowpack
Recent snows totaled around 30 cm at treeline with little wind effect or redistribution. Southwest aspects had a soft 2-3 cm thick melt-freeze crust on the surface with cold snow below that and no evidence of water percolating deeper into the snowpack. On northwest aspects, the snowpack consisted of 30 cm of recent snows, a 1F to Pencil-hard mid-pack slab, resting on a 20-80 cm thick layer of well-developed facets and depth hoar. The facets are 1F-hard and show signs of rounding, but this layer still produced hard, propagating results with snowpack tests, ECTP23. No cracking or collapsing or other signs of instability, but the structure and test scores are concerning and illustrate that it is possible to trigger an avalanche on these slopes.
Avalanche
No new activity observed.