Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Ron Simenhois · Feb 22, 2021 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Clearing skies after a few days with small snowfalls. Temperature and radiation increased during the day to the point where the snow surface on the south aspect BTL was getting moist.

Snowpack

On NE-E, ATL wind loading wasn’t subsectional with up to about 8” of P hard wind pack slab above 4F DF. This layer failed with moderate load (ECTP13). In many areas, there were no signs of recent loading or sastrugi on the snow surface. On SE aspect, N & ATL, recent wind load is more substantial with over 2’ in places. It was hard to get crack initiation with strengthening mid-pack, but once a crack was initiated, it also propagated (ECTP21). I didn’t see any obvious signs of instability. See snowpits for more details.