Vail & Summit County
SnowpackScott Toepfer · Nov 18, 2011 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Clear skies, mild temperatures. The Francies Cabin snow stake had 17" which is the 4th best total in the last 16 years. It had 31" in 2005.
Snowpack
Quite variable, West aspects that I could see ranging from near Loveland Pass to Georgia Pass to Boreas Pass and south to Hoosier Pass were mostly bare. S aspects in the Crystal Drainage were very thin to bare, with the exception that terrain features that tweaked a bit east had some deep hard slab development, tho this was rare. East aspects had a mix of hard slabs,thin soft slab and thin faceted snow with no slab on it. North aspect of Mt Helen was stripped almost bare, except some pockets of hard slab just below treeline. Where the snowpack had depth and some structure there was wide spread propagating and shooting cracks. Also noticeable collapse Snowpit on 35 degree NE aspect slope at 11,600 ft was 65 cm deep. Extended column test popped easily at 30 cm with nine taps from wrist, propagating the whole 90 cm wide. A Ruetsch Block test scored 2 (Stepped on the block) clean Q1 at 30 cm too. (The pit was dug through one of the shooting cracks)