Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

The snowpack where I was traveling was mostly faceted, between 30-65 cm deep. On west aspect and tree opening, the snowpack was notably thinner and with two crust layers, one at the surface and one about 10 cm deep. On northwest aspect, the snowpack had a few faceted layers (see snowpit for more details). In general, the snowpack lacks a slab layer to develop slab avalanches and the overall snow cover is not deep enough for avalanches to span over large portions of the start zones.