Northern San Juan

Swirling clouds throughout the day with temps steadily rising. Periods of sun quickly blasted the snowpack, melting away the new snow and likely forming crusts once it refreezes overnight. Winds picked up in the afternoon, helping to reduce the shed cycle on sunny slopes.

8 inches in the main valley at 9700', 16 inches below treeline, and 20 inches near treeline. Sadly, the snowpack never froze solid before the new snow fell, especially below treeline. And now, the new snow is insulating the old moist snowpack. One of the larger natural avalanches we saw started in the new snow and then gouged down into the old snow, pulling out a wet slab as it went which produced some big chunky debris. We also spotted several Wind Slab avalanches on leeward east and northeast-facing slopes. Wind-drifted snow didn't exceed far below the ridgeline, but we did find some 4 inch thick slabs that were unreactive to ski pressure.