Vail & Summit County
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Feb 18, 2025 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Intense wind loading continued above treeline on Tuesday afternoon
Snowpack
With over three feet of snow since February 13, the snowpack has doubled in depth. I found about a 160 cm snow depth below treeline and 220 cm near treeline. The February snow, which started with a small storm on February 7, makes up 90 to 120 cm of the snowpack. This snow is right-side up (fist at the surface to 1-F at the bottom) and, in many places, sits on a 1 to 2 cm thick melt-freeze crust. A layer of faceted snow sits below the melt-freeze crust. There is also a thin layer of facets where it is not sitting on a crust such as northeast NTL. These layers beneath the February snow are the main area of concern in the snowpack. Any avalanche on the layer buried on February 7th would be large and step down to deeper layers in the bottom half of the snowpack. Stability tests point to the layer of concern as stubborn to trigger. I got mostly non-propagating ECTs. Unofficial cross PSTs indicate if you are able to initiate a crack in the weak layer, it would likely propagate.
Avalanche
Several large avalanches around Peak 1. With the poor visibility and crowns also obscured by additional snow, it was hard to determine the extent of activity.