Vail & Summit County
AvalancheScott T · Dec 31, 2020 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Some early clouds followed by a quick spell of blue bird. Very mild day. No wind above treeline. Like that NEVER happens around Peak 10. By 2 pm the clouds filled back in. No snow as of 2:30 PM.
Snowpack
Hard slab everywhere. Been a lot of wind recently. Either bare ground or very dense wind compacted snow. Had one large rumbling collapse on the southern end of a feature we refer to as Moby Dick. Did not see any cracks tho. One slightly less notable collapse further up above treeline. One quick snowpit on SSE aspect around 12,000 feet. 2’ deep. Very dense hard slab (probably 450 Kg/cubic meter I’d bet). Top 18” was the dense wind slab which sat on a thin layer of small facets sitting on a dense 3” slab all resting on a 1-2” layer of depth hoar and depth hoar chains at the ground. Failed first on top of the 3” base slab then stepped to ground. 29-30 degree SSE aspect slope.
Avalanche
None noted