Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Mar 7, 2025 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Overcast with a few periods of light snow and also periods of filtered sun.
Snowpack
In two snowpits near treeline, I got easy propagating results 30 to 45 cm down on an easy-to-see layer of faceted snow. The snowpack is 190 cm deep, with 40 cm of snow since March 3rd. The top 10 cm is fist hard with the snow progressively harder to one-finger hard above the weak layer. The basal layer of concern is large-grained facets and depth hoar 35 cm from the ground. This layer is still four-finger hard. The layer buried on December 9th was not distinguishable and seems to be part of the faceted slab over the deeper basal layers. Above treeline, the slab described above was connected and consistent despite the recent strong winds. I am sure I could have found deep drifts right below cornices but otherwise the slab was generally 40 cm thick even in areas that normally have inconsistent snow depths due to winds. The overall snowpack depth did vary though, as usual, much more than the near treeline elevation band, with shallow spots under a meter deep. On east-facing slopes above treeline, there is a thin melt-freeze crust above the faceted layer on concern 40 cm down. I dug on southeast-facing slopes near treeline and found a much less concerning snowpack structure. These slopes have seen previous meltwater, that is now refrozen at various depths in the snowpack. Besides the hard, refrozen, meltwater and thick melt-freeze crusts, and lack of an upper snowpack weak layer, the slopes are also lacking a slab. The 40 cm slab I found on slopes with colder snow was baked down to 10 to 15 cm.