Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Nov 11, 2022 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

Obscured skies to start the day with clearing by late morning. It was cold especially with the wind. Moderate wind loading above treeline onto south-facing slopes.

Snowpack

Overall the snowpack is thin and the distribution of any deeper pockets of snow is highly variable due to recent winds. Below treeline, there is almost snow on southerly slopes, the same goes for near treeline. On shady slopes the below treeline snow depths is about 20 cm with no weak layer...except the one forming near the surface. Near treeline, on shady slopes, the snow depth increases and this is where I started finding faceted snow near the ground. It composes the bottom half of the 30 to 35 cm deep snowpack. The facets are not well developed, and they are small. They are definitely not rounding though and with this current cold weather, the snowpack will continue to weaken. There isn't a lot of snow in this area in general and I had to search hard for a northerly-facing wind-loaded feature to dig on. These wind-loaded terrain features are about the only places you can trigger an avalanche right now. Where I dug I found a 60 cm deep snowpack. The 45 cms is a one-finger hard slab and the bottom 15 cm is fist-hard, small faceted crystals. I performed one extended column test and got a result of ECTP4. This shows that although it is hard to find the right combination of a cohesive slab over old, faceted snow, if you do, there is a good chance to trigger an avalanche.