Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Bill Nalli · Jan 18, 2020 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Welcome respite from the wind. Calm and clear most of the day. High clouds moved in around 2 pm accompanied by a slight increase in NW wind. Not enough to transport more snow. Mild temps but not enough to wet the surface.

Snowpack

Four to six inches of new snow has settled nicely on all aspects except the most wind exposed. Near and above treeline, southwest and west ridges are stripped bare. Northwest aspects have been eroded by numerous recent strong wind events. Snow depths there are one meter or less with a new one finger dense slab on top. Caution should be used on all steep NW slopes with this dense slab over weak snow. They may not be the most likely areas to trigger slides now but attention should be given once they get a new load on top. See Pic. A pit above treeline on a southeast aspect also showed a snowpack less than one meter deep consisting of mostly facets of varying densities. In this location the sun crusts were deteriorating but in others seen throughout the day, the crust/facet layering is still dominant. Below treeline the newest snow has settled into a more cohesive slab with the mild temperatures, and sits on a relatively weaker old snow surface. I found some minor cracking on steep breakovers upon descent but slope angles where I was were not steep enough to slide. I imagined where slope angles were greater than 38 degrees you could get some of these lower elevation slopes to move.

Avalanche

Overall there were few new avalanches from the last storm. I did not notice any in the Ophir area but I did see some on the drive there on Sunshine Mountain and Campbell Peak.