Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Jason Konigsberg · Mar 28, 2017 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

Sunday was overcast with warm temps and a few bursts of mostly graupel in the afternoon. Snow accumulations on Saturday, prior to our arrival at the hut, was about 4 inches. On Monday morning there were scattered clouds. Clouds increased throughout the day with overcast skies and snow showers by late afternoon. On Tuesday skies were mostly obscured and there were periods of light snow showers.---Overall wind was calm over these three days, even at above treeline locations. Snow totals from Saturday to Tuesday afternoon was about 8 inches.

Snowpack

Underneath Saturday's new snow is a variety of hard crusts, most of which are melt-freeze crusts. The new snow from Saturday night is bonded very well to these old crusts. Snow from Sunday and Monday, although containing graupel at times, showed no slab characteristics or other signs of instability.--- A quick look at older snow layers on northerly aspects, near and below treeline, showed a mostly stable snowpack. A layer of surface hoar was observed about 40 cms down but it was very thin and compressed and unlikely to propagate a fracture.

Avalanche

We did not observe any significant avalanches or experience any signs of instability. There were a few very small Loose Dry avalanches in new snow on steep shady aspects and very small Loose Wet avalanches in new snow on steep and rocky south slopes.