Vail & Summit County
AvalancheIan Hoyer · Apr 7, 2016 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Beautiful, warm, and clear day. Just the faintest breeze out of the west.
Snowpack
Wet snow at the surface on almost every slope facing every direction. A couple patches of dry surface snow hiding in the shady directly next to trees. Easily initiated roller balls on all aspects between noon and 3 PM. Only found a couple of isolated spots around bushes that had more than 3" of wet snow at 3pm. The lower snowpack on sunny slopes consisted of hard, frozen, melt-freeze crusts. I dug on the shadiest NE facing slopes I could find. Water had penetrated 40 cm down into the snowpack, but the lower pack remained dry. I got a propagating ECT result on the top of the early season facets. It will take a bit more warmth before all slopes have established drainage to the ground. That said, it appears that it is only isolated slopes that still hold dry snow. There didn't appear to be much wind affect in the remaining new snow.
Avalanche
No Loose Wet avalanches, but did see quite a bit of rollerballing on all aspects.