Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAustin DiVesta Jason Konigsberg · Dec 28, 2021 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Cold and snowing all day. Winds were light to moderate out of the West in the trees.
Snowpack
We dug a handful of pits on different slopes, and they all had very poor structure. Overall the snow depth has dramatically increased with the last couple of storms, but now there is a dense, thick slab resting on top of weak snow. We observed only one collapse today that was pretty large, but other than there weren’t those obvious signs of instabilities you would expect to see. Snowpit observations revealed easy to moderate propagation results on shallower west and east-facing slopes. We did find an area on an east slope that was wind-loaded and had 150cm, which produced hard propagation results but still broke near the ground. Things are still spooky out there. You can expect to find this poor snowpack structure starting to reach more slopes. Southerly aspects are now suspect.
Avalanche
We saw one small avalanche on a cut bank next to the groomed trail