Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Drew Gibson · Feb 24, 2024 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Mostly clear with high clouds. Warm temperatures to 12,000ft. Mostly calm with occasion swirling gusts.

Snowpack

Very quiet. No glaring signs of instability. Though the area has had wind transport in the previous week, the observed wind-affected snow was generally soft and unreactive. This being said I was not able to inspect slopes directly below ridgecrest with much detail without exposing myself to more hazard than I wanted. Warm temperatures and direct sun have formed a series of crusts on southerly aspects below treeline that are at times breakable at the surface. These are thin (a few cm) but slick and would not likely bond to new snow unless it is very warm. Near treeline east and southeast aspects have gained some strength in the lower snowpack, but a lingering persistent weak layer of facets in reactive 50cm-70cm deep. Test results were moderate to hard. In shallower areas, I was able to cause failures in the basal weak layers during tests after other upper pack layers had failed. The average height of snow was in the 150cm range though some areas with previous wind loading were upwards of 200cm. On northerly aspects near and below treeline the average height of snow was greater than 200cm, but had a similar weak layer buried 60cm-80cm down. At these lower elevations, the snow over the weak layers was mostly soft (fist to 4 finger). The weak layer was still reactive but with harder test scores into the 20s with propagation across the blocks. The take homes of the day: The buried weak layers 50cm-80cm down (depending on aspect) are reactive but are becoming difficult to trigger. Shallower areas are showing failures in both the mid-pack and the basal layers, this brings me concern thinking smaller slides triggering bigger slides (step down). It is hard to determine where the shallow spots are and where you may find an area of contiguous slab. If you are unfortunate enough to hit the sweet spot you could trigger a very large and surprising slide.