Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey · Jan 20, 2021 · Southern San Juan

Weather

Pleasant day in the mountains with southerly-facing slopes warming enough to glop the skins.

Snowpack

The snowpack theme in the southwest corner of the range is the same...shallow, weak, and lacking a cohesive slab near and below treeline. We found 6 to 8 inches of new snow on north to east-facing slopes with up to 12 inches on those same aspects at treeline. Minor evidence of drifting during and after the storm with light surface texture. The upper slab was soft and non-slabby even on exposed slopes where we traveled. However, while walking out onto an open slope at treeline, we observed a loud collapse from a shallow part of the slope and on the edge of the slab with a faceted crust buried below. No cracking observed on that same slope and stability test produced dirty failures in CTs and non-propagating results in ECTs. Alpine slopes are a mixture of snow and rock next to deeper drifted areas harboring stiffer slabs. Below treeline, the snowpack consist of new snow above facets to the ground. Despite this, below treeline slopes remain supportable to down hill travel with boot penetration to the ground. Travel lightly as numerous natural obstacles lurk below the lower you descend. The overall weak snowpack structure is not stoking confidence moving forward in spite of test not producing propagating failures. With a stormy period potentially knocking at the door step, a quick and big load will most likely drive up the avalanche danger.

Avalanche

None observed.