Northern San Juan
SnowpackKrista Beyer · Jan 6, 2025 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Day started out with intermittent clouds and good visibility. 11-12:00pm fog, flat light, cloud cover, S1- precipitation, and calm southwest winds made for challenging visibility and flat light conditions in the alpine.
Snowpack
In the alpine slabs of varying thickness and firmness are connected above weak facets from the December drought period. The firmness of the slab is connected to the sensitivity of the Persistent Slab avalanche problem. Firm pencil hard slabs buried by recent softer snow fail on isolation but are challenging to impact as a skier or rider unless you find the thinner margins of the slab. These hard slabs are also more likely to propagate further than expected and break above you if you were to impact them as a skier or rider. Margins of the slab are challenging to identify but are often near rock outcroppings and steep convex rolls. Where the surface slab is softer, there are signs of bonding with the old facets. In many areas, pit results are getting increasingly harder or non-propagating failures where there used to be easy or moderate propagating failures. These areas are trending more stubborn, but still carry the structure for an avalanche. We are in a low confidence period where we are seeing fewer signs of instability in the alpine, but still carry the potential of triggering a large and dangerous avalanche. In addition, recent snowfall has made it difficult to determine from surface level where firmer and softer slabs exist in the alpine. Conservative travel choices are critical.