Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

We dug on a couple different aspects and found a midpack melt-freeze crust with facets below. A one-finger hard wind-drifted slab, up to 10 inches thick, sits on top of softer snow and on top of this crust. Any area of wind-drifted snow would crack under skis. Although there were basal facets in most snowpits the faceted layer under the melt-freeze crust was most concerning. We got isolated whumpfing and cracking on this layer. Continued snowfall and wind over the next week will likely overload this faceted layer and increase the avalanche hazard. At the present time it is possible to trigger small avalanches on steep northerly and east-facing terrain features above treeline.