Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAnonymous · Jan 30, 2011 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
We found widespread surface hoar on all aspects in the morning and nearly every shaded aspect later in the day. It was about an inch or so thick. Here's an image: http://i.imgur.com/Xuvhp.jpg Feel free to use that image as you please.
Snowpack
On Saturday, the 29th, Uneva Peak looked great in the morning. By the mid/late afternoon, we saw the aftermath of the avalanche mentioned in today's report. Here's an image we took from the corniced ridge south of Shrine Mountain pass: http://i.imgur.com/NjcHL.jpg Again, feel free to use that image as you please. I experienced a dramatic change in stability when traversing across a low-angled slope on the 29th around mid/late afternoon. The second the aspect changed to South-Southwest, every step sounded hollow & I heard lots of wumphing. I didn't experience this on any other aspect the whole day. The temperature on nearby Ptarmigan Peak seemed to skyrocket right between 2:30 and 3:00 pm and we saw a wide band of snow that had slid on a nearby peak with a similar aspect directly South/Southwest of Ptarmigan. The snow that slid seemed to be isolated near the cornice along the top ridgeline.