Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett Mike Barney · Apr 7, 2021 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Warm day following a solid freeze. Slow warm up with cold air pooled in the valley bottom.

Snowpack

Dramatic melt-off after the first week of April. Very little snow on SE-S-W terrain near and below treeline. Wind scoured ridgelines have melted back to bare ground. Wind-drifted snow has wetted and refrozen with mostly smooth surfaces. Far less of a shed cycle than the Gunnison zone or the Hwy 550 corridor.

Avalanche

Surprisingly few Wet Slab avalanches. Lots of looking through binoculars and only found a small handful of Wet Slabs, 3 of which were in the Rose Lime Kiln area. Numerous small gouging Loose Wet avalanches on northerly slopes below treeline that looked like they ran early in the warm up (around April 3rd). There was notably few recent avalanche activity in the alpine. Even Loose Wet activity was confined to the steepest, most rocky features. No avalanches observed in smooth open terrain.