Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Ann Mellick · Feb 10, 2020 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Springlike. Variably cloudy with periods of S1+ snowfall followed by periods of sun. Only light winds and mild temps- warm when the sun popped out.

Snowpack

We primarily traveled on an ESE aspect and found quite a weak snowpack. At least a dozen large collapses (whumphs) felt while both ascending and descending. Recent storm snow has quickly settled to only 6"-8' in this area. This sits on top of a layer cake of pencil-hard crusts and 4 finger-hard facets. The most concerning interface is one of these crust/facet combos that sits 30cm from the top, where a snowpit test showed an ECTP 11 (ESE aspect btl). The snowpack on the ridge above treeline was quite thin and made up primarily of a 2-12 cm windslab sitting on very large-grained facets (3-5mm). None of these areas were confidence inspiring! Even short periods of sunshine rapidly warmed the snow surface making the snow moist and sticky. While spring is in the air, the snowpack is solidly still in winter mode with myriad weak layers and cold snow below the surface.