Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Jan 23, 2020 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Cold and blustery at ridge top once you popped out of the trees. A stiff and cold northwest wind was blowing and loading up easterly aspects. Light snow showers and obscured skies ruled the day.
Snowpack
In most areas below treeline the snowpack is weak from top-to-bottom. This changes a bit once you pop out of the trees or enter into open areas affected by the wind. Strong westerly winds have distributed the snow at higher elevations into an array of thickness and densities. HS ranged from 85-135cm on average. Generally speaking the snowpack is weak in many areas with large basal facets and depth hoar at the bottom, a weak mid-pack slab and softer layers of new snow at the top. This can change wildly across a wind-effected slope where drifts many feet thick sit next to completely scoured surfaces. The most dangerous slopes are where thicker slabs have formed on leeward slopes over weaker snow layers. We dug a pit above a recent skier triggered avalanche and found only weak, nonreactive snow. I think further down the slope or adjacent to our pit, wind-drifted slabs may have been thicker and more reactive, but the risk for collecting that data was a little too high today.
Avalanche
None observed