Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Matt Huber Rebecca Hodgetts · Dec 29, 2020 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

Thin and broken cloud cover on the east side of the pass, low hanging clouds lingered on the west side throughout the morning producing light snow showers and limiting visibility.

Snowpack

A very noisy day with whumpfing at what felt like every step and turn. The only visible cracking observed during the trip was on a northwest-facing slope near treeline. The failure occurred below the new storm interface on a thin layer of buried surface facets about 90 cm below the surface.

Avalanche

A small slab avalanche ran naturally from Stud 1 overnight, Alberta's cousin produced a natural D2 overnight as well, unclear on failure layer. Multiple small, shallow storm slabs ran below treeline on very steep, open slopes.