Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Amy Pertuz · Jan 20, 2023 · Northern San Juan

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Observation photo 1

Weather

Temperatures in the teens with overcast skies turning to light S-1 snow in the afternoon. Winds were light out of the North.

Snowpack

The storm snow since last week has settled into a slab just under a meter thick here. A crust formed on January 13th sits below that storm snow, and produced clean shears, but the weak layer of interest continues to be the Persistent Weak Layer from December. This layer is at the threshold of being too deep to impact but there are plenty of places where snow cover thins where you may still be able to impact it. No cracking or collapsing.

Avalanche

Near Matterhorn, saw a large avalanche on a near-treeline slope facing south and southwest which likely failed around the 17th. This slide was over a meter deep and propagated across a lot of terrain