Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

John Mackinnon · Apr 21, 2014 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

140418-140421 Experienced all sorts of spring weather during the past 4 days at the Eiseman Hut. Of note were the weak freezes that we observed at our snow study plot at 11,180 ft. Temperatures hovered around freezing during the evenings, and on cloudy nights only the top 5 cm of the snpx would re-freeze. Westerly winds were light-moderate throughout the duration of our trip. There was no significant accumulation of precip during our stay, but we did see some large graupel (5mm) and even heard 2 claps of thunder.

Snowpack

Cloudy and mild evenings kept the upper snowpack from re-freezing solidly on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday--after a mild cloudy night and spotty sunshine during the day--both of our groups observed a fully isothermal snowpack below treeline on E,S and W aspects by 1300. Skies cleared last night, but there still wasn't a solid re-freeze. The dust layer (3/30?) is down 15 cm and had moist grains above it this morning despite a Tsurf of -6, an airtemp of -1.5 (0630 at 11180 ft) and a clear night.

Avalanche

Observed several size 1 loose wet avalanches on west aspects BTL.