Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Although we are in a long dry period, snow coverage below treeline seems to be better than normal. The snow height was around 70 cm on an east-facing slope at 10,600 feet, increasing to 100 cm on northeast at 11,000 feet. This northeast-facing slope was right below ridgetop and drifted over the past week. A 22 cm slab, up to one-finger hard, above the weak layer, propagated on eight taps in an ECT. We traveled on southeast-facing slopes near treeline and found no consistent slab. The snowpack was very weak and shallow though and it won't take much of a load to produce avalanches. Southeast in general, has a much weaker snowpack than east and northeast where it is relatively deeper.