Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Jason Konigsberg · Jan 24, 2017 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

A little bit of everything today from snow showers to some nice sun breaks to broken skies. Heaviest precip was around 2 PM at S1 (less than an inch an hour). Snow showers were generally very light. Wind near 12k ridgetop moving small amounts of snow.

Snowpack

I dug 4 quick pits on a variety of aspects in the Uneva Peak area. I did not identify any buried surface hoar. The most concerning layer is small facets around a melt-freeze crust. In many areas the slab was too soft to propagate a fracture. When I moved to a near treeline area with more wind-drifted snow I got a result of ECTP17 on facets below the MF crust. The crust is 40 to 50 cms below the surface. It is beginning to seem our surface hoar issue is not widespread. We will likely continue to see small pockets pull out but a large connected avalanche on surface hoar seems unlikely. More concerning is southerly aspects where the MF crust/facet combo is consistent across a slope. Larger avalanches may be possible in wind-drifted areas that break 2 feet deep.

Avalanche

I was able to view a good bit of terrain today with some good visibility at times around Vail Pass. No significant avalanche activity occurred during the storm. A small pocket released naturally on the east side of Tucker Mountain (in previous ob). This avalanches looked characteristic of an avalanche failing on surface hoar but hard to say for sure.