Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Ethan Davis Ian Hoyer · Feb 5, 2015 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Beautiful sunny day. Significant wind loading.

Snowpack

Lots of cracking and collapsing on NW & E aspects near treeline. No collapsing on SW-W slope. SH/NSF seem to be confined to NW-N-E aspects. Found wind drifts up to 1m deep. The shallow PS problem was quite reactive.

Avalanche

Went to check out avalanche reported in obs_id=30371. Looks like it might have slid in two phases, middle slid earlier, left and right flank slid later (night of 2/4?). Heavily wind loaded slope.