Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Mark Gober · Jan 13, 2017 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

intermittent snow showers with minimal accumulations

Snowpack

On our approach we touched into the alpine and experienced some recent wind slab development. Makes me think that our alpine starting zones have some fairly substantial slabs on the leeward side of ridges. We dug a quick pit below treeline on a westerly aspect. HS was 190cm but only took a close look at top 50-60cm. Found a weak layer 30cm down that had the looks of surface hoar (I did not have lens in pack...)and failed repeatedly on CT tests and propagated in between ski cuts. The top 30 cm was split in two layers with the top 15 being lower density new snow from last night and the bottom 15 cm a slightly stiffer slab. While not an issue currently in that location, with a new snow load it may prove to be a problem layer. We were guessing it is from after the storm on the 9th/10th.