Northern San Juan

Brief windows of sun mid-morning popped off some small loose activity on southwest slopes above treeline.

Partly sunny skies with swirling clouds. Temperatures quickly rose to above freezing with calm winds and light gusts out of the southwest. Periods of sunshine felt WARM and snow surfaces wetted quickly.

I dug two snow pits at 11,900': one in a sunny spot, more east-facing, and one in a shady spot, more northeast. I found that where the new snow landed on crusts (east), it bonded well, and there were no results in snowpack instability tests. In the snow pit in the shade at 11,900 feet, I found slightly stiffer snow from the January 24th storm sitting over weak snow, and I got an extended column test to propagate on the 12th and 19th tap on this layer. The snowpack has deteriorated in the last two plus weeks of no snow. Yesterday's new snow ends that long dry spell. The new snow landed on a variety of surfaces, with thick, supportive crusts on sunny slopes and shallow, thin melt-freeze crusts on shadier slopes. Below those crusts, snow is faceted and we still have the Christmas crust visibly present in the snowpack, although it has deteriorated and is now only fist hard.