Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg, Ian Hoyer · Dec 24, 2015 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Clearing skies in the morning gave way quickly to thick clouds moving in from the south. Wind speed was calm below treeline and light at ridgetop. There was minimal wind loading in the area we were at. In the distance we could see more moderate wind loading at a higher ridgeline.
Snowpack
We did not observe any avalanches today in any of the large surrounding terrain.---Snowpack below treeline is weak with a slab building on top of the mostly faceted snowpack. In the area we traveled there was not enough of a slab to be an issue. I would imagine in areas of the zone that received more snow there would be a thicker slab that would potentially overload the weak snowpack.--- Near treeline was heavily wind affected and another hard wind slab was deposited on the surface. We didn't observe any areas of continuous thick wind drifts. Wind drifts would not crack under skis and were not sensitive.---See attached video for description of a south aspect near treeline.