Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Mike Barney · Dec 31, 2020 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Broken skies cleared to a few clouds in the afternoon with light southwest winds temperatures around 20 degrees.

Snowpack

North aspects below treeline are weak enough to easily plant your pole to the ground through about 80cm of fist and 4 finger hard snow. New snow in the Ophir area BTL is about 8" deep and fist hard. ski pen is 15 to 20cm. Most slopes that had not been touched for the season collapsed and and shooting cracks propagated up to 40' wide. Not much of a slab BTL in the Ophir area.

Avalanche

We observed D2 avalanches on west to north to east aspects that slide around December 29th. A D2 skier triggered avalanche was reported on a near treeline slope that faces southeast just west of the Carbonero Mine.