Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

John Mackinnon · Jan 28, 2016 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Clear skies, calm winds at ridge-tops and seasonably mild temps.

Snowpack

Surface hoar event up observed up to 12K on all aspects I visited. Decomposing on lower elevation steep sunny slopes, but well preserved on other aspects visited. Skied east aspects near and below TL. Stiff slab observed below ridge-top, but the snowpack quickly changed to weak and bottomless. Westerlies near and above TL are still holding cold snow although they were surprisingly bottomless for windward aspects in Summit County.

Avalanche

Observed a fairly recent large slab avalanche off the SE side of Tucker Mountain above TL. The initial slab avalanche stepped down to weaker basal layers. Impressive propagation that changed aspect and traveled across to an adjacent ridge. The debris made it about 1/2 way down the slide path. This is significant evidence of the stacks and stacks of persistent slabs that are perched throughout our snowpack. Explosive triggered.