Northern San Juan

Walking up an old mining road below treeline, I felt a big collapse and remotely triggered a D2 Persistent Slab avalanche from about 150 feet away. This avalanche failed where the new snow sits on faceted weak snow. The avalanche propagated around a corner on a mine dump, from north to northwest to west-facing. It wrapped around from one side to the other taking out 3/4 of the snow on this mine dump pile. Also triggered several small Storm Slab avalanches (8" thick crowns) in the trees. This area got a quick hit of snow early this morning with high precipitation intensity.

Periods of heavy snowfall off and on throughout the morning. Winds were light, gusting moderate out of the southwest. Temperatures stayed cold and in the teens. Around mid-morning, there was a bit of blue sky, but for most of the day, skies were obscured by low clouds and poor visibility.

The snowpack more than doubled in this area since February 11th. New slabs are about 70cm thick and sit over very weak snow. As I drove to Rico on Highway 145, I observed numerous Storm Slab releases, with the quick shot of snow from early this morning failing on precipitation particles from the snowfall on Wednesday. This Storm Slab problem will remedy quickly, but the deeper Persistent Slab problem is spooky and will likely linger for some time. I fear we will be tiptoeing around avalanche terrain with the February 11th persistent weak layer on everyone's mind for many days to come...