Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAndrew McWilliams · Feb 14, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Light snowfall and obscured skies to start the tour became broken by noon. Winds were light with moderate gusts from the southwest.
Snowpack
The snow was supportable to travel on the ascent and descent and no signs of instability were noted. There was about 10cm of new snow near treeline from the night before. Wind speeds were light and not much of the new snow was moving around. At and below treeline there were crusts in the upper snowpack on south and east aspects from recent warm and sunny weather. As soon as we ascended past treeline the crusts were no longer present on east aspects. Southerly-facing slopes above treeline still had the upper crusts and there were some loose dry sluffs out of steep, cliffy areas in the new snow. A snowpit on an east aspect near treeline had new snow and decomposing fragments above a one-finger to pencil hard mid-pack slab composed of rounds and rounding facets over rounding depth hoar. The depth hoar layer was about 45cm thick and had decomposing melt-freeze crusts within it that did not have a significant hardness difference from the rest of the layer. Snow depth on this slope averaged about 150cm.