Southern San Juan

Lots of natural activity from the 2/11-2/21 storm cycle. Nothing looked fresh apart from some loose roller balls.

Warm, sunny, light breeze.

Near and below treeline SE-S-W aspects are cooked with little to no snow coverage. East still has below treeline coverage and is hanging onto the snow from the last storm. I dug on a slope that was east-facing around 11,600 ft and 112cm in depth. I recieved a CT17 and an ECTX. A best guess says about 10 cm of snow has melted or settled in the last two weeks on east aspects (comparable with nearby SNOTEL site). This snow was likely lost during a period of warm temperatures and superficial freezing from the 27th through the 1st of March. Percolation columns in the slab and rounding depth hoar indicate that water has moved through the entirety of the snowpack during this warming period on east slopes. Another warm period is fast approaching and while the slab-weak layer combination has lost the energy for persistent slab issues, it still has the structure and is building avenues for free-flowing water that may cause wet slab instabilities down the line. Wet slabs are hard to predict and often do not rear their heads, but if you look at the recipe of structure, snow depth, and rapid wetting, east aspects are the most likely aspect to develop wet slab instabilities.