Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey · Apr 28, 2022 · Southern San Juan

Weather

Mild spring day with thin, high clouds and a light breeze at upper elevations.

Snowpack

We found a thin, egg-shell surface freeze on low to mid elevation slopes that was supportive to skis, but we easily punched through into wetter snow when stepping off our skis. Once we climbed above 11,200 feet or so, we found an overall stronger surface refreeze with more isolated locations where we sunk into wet, rotten snow. A steady breeze near ridgelines and above treeline prevented surfaces from warming quick, but they eventually softened by early-afternoon. The most recently deposited layer of dust is emerging on the surface - most exponentially near and below treeline and along the southern half of the compass above treeline. Northerly slopes continue fighting the good fight and remain white, for now. Places where the snow surface is brown or a white/ caramel swirl appearance softened first offering some decent corn turns. Digging on a north-facing slope at treeline revealed a snowpack that continues to transition toward a spring-pack with wet to moist grains dominating the top meter of the snowpack. The "drought layer" facets have become moist and gotten softer/ weaker since the first part of April when I dug on this same slope. We observed sudden planar failures in Compression Test breaking in moist, rounding facets with the block quickly sliding off the column. This occurred once we isolated the column breaking the strength of the upper re-frozen layers. This set-up could be a concern for Wet Slab avalanches once these facets get wetter and the overlying slab softens. We saw no other signs of instability today in this weak layer.

Avalanche

Fresh Loose Wet avalanche activity starting to encroach into northwest and northeast-facing terrain around treeline.