Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Mar 23, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Light snow shower and broken skies persisted throughout the day. Short-lived squally periods with small bursts of snow and stronger winds were frequent.
Snowpack
The snowpack varied in height quite dramatically, but was generally on the deeper side. Thinner areas ranged in the 120-170cm, while deeper areas consistently topped 230-300+cm. In deep areas, the main concern is a weak crust just below the few inches of new snow. It's not a problem at the moment but was widespead and could be a future problem if we ever get a big load of snow again. Otherwise, the snowpack below the crust was deep and strong. In thinner areas, there are still basal weak layers but they are pretty well insulated by a thick and strong mid-to-upper slab. We had a PST end 50/100 on a the interface of weak facets and upper slab 100cm down. Basically confirms the thin spot/trigger point problem.
Avalanche
We saw a few old crown lines throughout the range, but surprisingly, nothing in the Very-Large/Historic range. Avalanche likely failed around 3/13