Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKade Bickford · Mar 23, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
It was partly sunny with calm winds, the temperature was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Snowpack
I am not sure what the base depth was but it has to be at least 90+ inches. There have been several warm ups recently making sun crusts in the snowpack. In the past week there was about 1-2+ of new heavier snow. On Wednesday there was some mildly strong winds with the storm.
Avalanche
We came up to this line to see that it had already slid. It broke off from on top of one of the cliffs, then built up steam and ran about 800 vertical feet and was about 40 feet wide. It looked like the crown was about 10 inches thick, and the debris was 2-3 feet deep, it was a soft slab avalanche. It looks like it ran naturally, on either March 22nd when the last storm was at its strongest, or possibly March 23rd around mid morning from the sun warming the slope up. We got to the slope around 1:30 pm on the 23rd.