Northern San Juan

A sensational spring day with light winds out of the north.

The recent snow from April 14th created a mixed bag of conditions. There was a soft wind effect, ripples (which were nice for skiing), and then a 5-8cm Wind Slab that would pop out dinner-table-sized sections on kick-turn corners. These wind slabs rested on a layer of softer snow that was not faceting but rather decomposing fragments from the last storm. We found a drifted spot with 155cm of snow. The wind slab failed when we isolated it in our Extended Column Test, but there was no further propagation down in the snowpack. Even at 1 pm, the snow surfaces in this basin were not yet warming up.