Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAnonymous · Dec 10, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Clear skies, a few early morning clouds. 19deg at the base, maybe 15deg at the top.
Snowpack
On the east ridge of Pk 1 we found 12-20" of fresh snow. The skier breaking trail noticed a few isolated spots of settling while breaking trail in the deeper snow as we gained elevation. Primarily the settling occurred in spots where we were on top of small trees and vegetation under the new snow layer. We did not observe any cracking or remotely triggered settling. We did not perform any snow stability tests or other observations besides measuring total snow depth on occasion with a ski pole.
Avalanche
Once we neared treeline on the ridge we could view the North>North East Side of Ten Mile Peak (Peak 2). We observed a large natural avalanche that ran almost the full width and length of the slope. It appeared that it ran on the underlying weak base layer. Start zone at 12,600~ ran to 12,000~?