Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey Jeff Davis · Jan 28, 2021 · Southern San Juan

Weather

Beautiful sunny day in the mountains with light winds near treeline. High, thin clouds again moved in during the afternoon and helped kept air temperatures at bay. Cloud cover was enough to prevent even southerly-facing slopes from developing a noticeable crust above 10,000 feet.

Snowpack

A significant amount of snow fell in the Vallecito area during this past storm and the new snow makes up around the top two feet of the snowpack (We guesstimate that around 3 feet fell during storm with about a foot of settlement). The new load sits on top of a snowpack that was shallow and full of facets. At this time, the new snow is not stiff enough to promote propagation or significant avalanche activity below treeline. The new snow was dry despite above freezing temperatures today - a crust was not observed on any slope. When we stepped off our skies or snow machine we easily sank to the ground. This was a good indicator of the softer stiffness of the snowpack. Isolated cracking and collapsing mostly in wind-exposed areas.

Avalanche

We observed a lot of natural activity that occurred during our last stormy period from 1/22-1/26. Evidence was a mixture of storm snow instabilities and bigger slides failing in old snow.