Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Jan 3, 2022 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Relatively warm, tempertaures mid 20s with a light breeze in the morning. Winds picked up to moderate to strong after 1pm transporting snow to the east side of Bald Mountain at ridgelines.
Snowpack
I dug several pits, mainly below treeline and near treeline, looking for the Persistent Slab avalanche problem distribution. I observed lots of cracking and collapsing localized to my skis but did feel several more widespread, with shooting cracks about 50 ft from my ski tips. I traveled mainly on west and northwest slopes where the slab is not as strong as other aspects. Most of the slabs that I found today were four-finger hardness, with a couple of crusts from the early season or wind from the last storm. I traveled to an east-facing slope near treeline and saw an old avalanche on an adjacent slope that ran sometime in the last storm cycle. I found a relatively shallow spot to dig and found a couple of cust facet combinations which contributed to easy propagation tests. This was a good reminder that the poor structures did not magically disappear after the last storm cycle. We just buried this structure, and where the slab is thicker, we won’t have obvious signs of unstable snow like cracking and collapsing.
Avalanche
Slopes were mostly filled back up, but you still see large blocks of snow in runout zones. Most likely ran in the last week.