Vail & Summit County
SnowpackRon Simenhois · Apr 8, 2025 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Warm, windy, and mostly sunny.
Snowpack
NE to E aspects (near and above treeline): The snowpack was dry with a thin surface crust. Just beneath this crust was a 10 cm layer of 4F-hard decomposing fragments (DF grains). Below that, the snowpack consisted of alternating crusts from previous warm-ups interspersed with facets (FC), creating a variable structure. N aspect: Snow depth ranged from 150 to 175 cm and was entirely composed of moist to wet grains. I dug multiple pits in varied terrain—near rocks, cliffs, and approximately 20 meters away from any identifiable dark or warm objects. Snow structure was consistent across these locations, with a ~50 cm P-hard crust layer in the mid-pack, and wet grains above and below. The primary difference was grain size: in pits near rocks and cliffs, the basal wet grain layers contained grains 0.5 to 1 mm larger than those found farther away from heat sources.