Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey · Nov 19, 2020 · Southern San Juan

Weather

Sunny and mild day with generally light ridge top winds. Despite warm overnight temperatures, snow surfaces were firm to start out.

Snowpack

Snow cover is predominately melted out below 10,000 feet except in steep, very shaded areas. Between 10,000 feet up to about 11,000 feet, snow cover is isolated to northerly-facing slopes with few areas harboring enough snow to safely slide on. In the La Plata Mountains, the alpine has by far the deepest snow depths. Southerly and westerly-facing slopes continue to melt back to bare ground. North through east-facing slopes have the most continuous snow cover. Near-surface faceting is widespread on shady slopes and sunny slopes now have a firm faceted surface crust. We did not find widespread presence of October snow at the base of the snowpack on northerly-facing slopes but where we did, it's resting under a stiff slab. This was most common directly below ridgelines and around terrain features that are heavily wind-loaded. No signs of unstable snow observed during our travels suggesting a stubborn slab, weak layer combination.

Avalanche

None observed