Vail & Summit County
AvalancheUSFS Level 1 · Jan 26, 2017 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Cold temperatures today with light winds below and near treeline. Although the winds were light the wind was easily drifting the low-density snow. Looking at Ptarmigan Peak (above treeline) wind transport was more significant onto easterly slopes.--- Cloud cover for most of the day until mid afternoon when the sun came out, still partially cloudy.
Snowpack
Our class only dug on a southwest-facing near treeline slope. Observations from the class are: We performed an Extended Column Test, and on the 4th tap observed a a fracture within the storm layer at 25 cm depth. The storm layer did not propagate. At 14 taps, the group observed a non-propagating fracture on the layer of concern (ECTN 14)----Did a few tests and found one persistent weak layer about 15-20 inches down. Seemed to be an inscrease of harder snow throughout the snow pack. While skiing I used my poles and found the snow pack to get harder as I pushed my pole down.-----Extended Column Test SW slope near 11,000ft 180 cm total snowpack depth Failures within storm snow Melt freeze layer ~150cm, failure during test with no propagation----Performed several tests including compression, extended column, and burp the baby tests with at least 10 different pits dug by the group. The top 16 inches of the snowpack consisted of different layers of soft snow brought in by recent storms. A melt/freeze crust layer was discovered underneath which is thought to be the weak point in the snowpack. No propagation was observed.----Could not get any propagation to occur in the snow pit we dug which was about 3 feet deep.---Relatively stable, failures with the column tests at 12 inches
Avalanche
No avalanches observed, large fractures, or other obvious signs of instability.