Northern San Juan
AvalancheColin Mitchell · Apr 17, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Cool and sunny morning with light but gusty northwest winds. Some intermittent loading observed.
Snowpack
Last night's snow was sitting on a firm wind crust with some softer snow underneath, then old, hard windslabs below that. At treeline, the new snow started to show some effects from the wind and the snow was noticeably slabby in places. The slabs and drifts we encountered above treeline were small and only 8-12" thick. They were not reactive to skiers and the only sign of instability we had was some minor cracking around our skies while breaking trail. A nearby party triggered a pair of windslabs on a steep, northeast-facing slope. We skied an adjacent, lower-angled slope (~35 degrees) without incident. The snow near and above treeline stayed cold all day, but below treeline was getting wet and heavy by early afternoon on all but north aspects.
Avalanche
A skier triggered a small windslab on a steep northeast slope which released another slab sympathetically, no one was caught in either slide. A few small, harmless loose slides were observed running early in the afternoon from sun and warming temperatures.