Southern San Juan
SnowpackChris Bilbrey · Feb 21, 2023 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Windy was the main attraction. Clouds increased during the day becoming ominous-looking by the afternoon. Light snowfall started around 4 pm.
Snowpack
The wind has done a number to the snowpack over the last couple of days. We found mixed-bag conditions ranging from Sastrugi to hard, wind-pressed surfaces above the treeline. Near treeline slopes that are more open and exposed to wind-drifting harbor similar surface conditions. We barely made an impression on the snow surface when traveling over harder surfaces, and the depth of the wind layer ranged from a few inches up to 6 inches thick. Jumping on small, pillowy test slopes did not yield any cracking or snow movement. Places still hold soft, cold snow in the alpine, mostly tucked into heavily wind-protected areas on the lee side of the terrain. East and west-facing slopes near treeline have resisted the recent warmup better than expected, but steeper slopes developed a thin zipper crust. We found a widespread surface crust on east through south to west-facing slopes below the treeline that softened with sunny skies in the morning but turned bullet-proof with cloudy skies in the afternoon. Persistent weak layers buried by last week's snowfall were stubborn to unreactive in snowpits on north and northwest-facing slopes near the treeline. The stiffness of the overlying slab seems to influence test results - a harder, more firm layer = unreactive test results. In both snowpits, the Valentine's Day interface ranged from 50 to 58 cm below the surface and was 1F rounding faceted grains. Lots of recent settlement below the treeline has promoted the strengthening of upper snowpack layers and we found generally safe conditions at lower elevations.