Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Apr 20, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Windy and cold. About four inches of new snow. These amounts were extremely variable as the wind had scoured the surface back down to crusts and created isolated drifts up to a foot thick.
Snowpack
We dug 100 feet below ridgetop on an above-treeline east-facing slope. We found about 8 to 10 inches of drifted snow, up to one-finger in hardness. An Extended Column Test did not produce any propagating results. Cracks started but did not propagate, within the slab and also a couple of inches above the crust buried beneath the new snow. On this above treeline slope, we found recent snow to be bonded well to the buried dusty melt-freeze crust. How the new snow over the next few days bonds to this crust will be the main concern over the next few days.