Northern San Juan
AvalancheKrista Beyer · Mar 12, 2025 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Warm with light winds. Partial clouds throughout the day perhaps slowed, but did not stop warming of the snow surface.
Snowpack
I dug on a NE slope near treeline adjacent to a natural that likely occurred on March 6th. The snowpack here can be defined by aggressive wind loading and a spatially variable snowpack ranging from bare rock outcroppings to snow depths over two meters. In the loaded areas, the snowpack was a wall of firm decomposing fragments over a wall of firm facets with weaker depth hoar over a meter deep. I failed to observe any notable results during pit tests. I also dug on a WNW slope near treeline. Weak facets were closer to the surface, and the snowpack was generally weaker and shallower on this slope. Snowpack tests on weak preserved facets were non-notable. While weak mid-layer and basal facets failed to produce propagating results, surfaces on both slopes have developed weaknesses that may be concerning under another load. Surfaces can be described as crust-facet combos or wind-drifted snow with observed instabilities at density changes. With another load we may see failures on these shallow buried weak layers.
Avalanche
A handful of naturals observed around Burns Gulch. These avalanches likely failed on March 6th loaded by strong winds and heavy snowfall.