Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Jeff Dobronyi · Dec 6, 2014 · Northern San Juan

View on map

Weather

E facing slopes 11100' in Swamp Canyon: overcast, temps approx -3 C, winds light from south with gusts to moderate, no precip

Snowpack

HS 45cm, melt-freeze crust under 6cm new snow from 12/3. Below this crust was a thin layer of very low-density facets, 1.5mm. no cracking or whumphing, though collapsing underfoot (both ski and boot) was noticeable, didn't seem to propagate very far. Stability tests showed fracture potential but the overlying slab didn't seem to have the strength to propagate the fracture beyond the area of direct loading. We skied a slightly more northeast facing aspect than the pit slope to avoid the crust. We found great skiing on a supportable snowpack with 6cm of soft snow on top, left over from recent precip.

Avalanche

none observed