Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Dug a pit on a West aspect below treeline this morning, and holy smokes, is our snowpack faceted! 90 centimeters of large grained facets dominate the bottom of our snowpack, and now we have a 4Finger-hard slab sitting on top of it from the snow that fell since February 21st. Persistent slabs be lurking, folks! Snowpack tests produced a CT 11 and ECT P23 on the drought facets. After doing snowpack tests we undercut the slab and had another observer jump on it (pseudo-Reutschblock-style) and he triggered a rumbling collapse that shook nearby trees and dropped us all 2 inches lower! We certainly have a dangerous snowpack structure currently below treeline: with a cohesive 50cm thick slab sitting on top of extremely weak facets. Under these conditions, managing your terrain choice and widening your margins is critical.