Claudia Brauer skis below Mt. Sneffels – May 2020.
This morning we got out for a [possibly] final ski/splitboard tour on the quickly melting snowpack. After what had been an amazing backcountry winter season here in the San Juans, April brought drought and pandemic, and I actually haven’t been out snowboarding since late March! So it felt amazing to make some carves again on soft spring corn snow today.
At the end of March the San Juan snowpack was at 100% average level, but April and May have been so hot and dry that the snowpack has dropped to only 25% of average for mid-May, and a mere 13% of what the snowpack was at this time after last year’s mega winter. In other words, last year there was 8 times the amount of now as right now! [See SNOTEL data chart here].
Check out this photo below of Claudia skiing in the same place as the photo above, in JUNE last year!
Claudia Brauer skis below Mt. Sneffels – June 2019.
Hopefully we get some weather and rain in late May and June, otherwise it could be a parched and smoky summer.
