Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Mar 7, 2025 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
It was a very spring-like day, with some snow flurries, intense sun, and a little bit of southwest wind.
Snowpack
I dug two snow pits on southeast-facing slopes, one below treeline around 11,400ft and one at 11,900ft. The snow height in the sheltered snowpit at 11,400 ft was 146cm. There are plenty of melt-freeze crusts mixed into this snowpack right now. There is still cold, dry snow near the ground here, but the facets near the ground are slowly starting to gain strength and round out. My Extended Column Test produced a failure from six taps from the should at 70 cm from the ground. As I moved up in elevation to near 11,900 ft. I found more of a drifted area on a southeast-facing slope with 220cm of snow. While I did still see some cold snow towards the bottom of where I dug (I only dug to 95cm), a lot more water had moved through this snowpack with ice all the way to 115cm from the ground. I found a small layer of facets forming underneath the 5cm Pencil Hard melt-freeze crust but it was unreactive in stability tests. My ECT did not produce any failure here.