Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAndrew McWilliams · Jan 19, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Few clouds and light northwest winds. Below zero temperatures to start the day quickly warmed with ample sunshine.
Snowpack
On below treeline protected southerly slopes there is about 60-80cm of snow. As I ascended onto west-facing slopes near and above treeline the height of snow increased. Near treeline there was about 90-110cm of snow with drifts over 120cm. For a normally windward slope, coverage was remarkably uniform. Above treeline was a different story. Snow here was blown into deep and dense drifts or scoured to the old bed surface. There were also pockets of low-density snow blown into catches within the terrain. Some of these pockets cracked and collapsed as I traveled through them. From the ridgeline, east-facing slopes appeared loaded from the storm earlier in the week, but there was no recent avalanche activity observed. A steep, gullied west-facing near treeline slope on Mt. Guyot appeared cross-loaded with more uniform coverage than normal. A snowpit near treeline on the west-facing slope had about 25cm of new snow, 25cm of slab consisting of facets and faceting rounds, and then 50cm of depth hoar. Extended Column Tests had propagating failures at the interface of the new and old snow and at the top of the depth hoar layer.