Vail & Summit County
SnowpackDylan Craaybeek, Jason Konigsberg · Feb 3, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Cold morning -3F in Carbondale around 7:00 and 5F at the base of Tigiwon Road at 9:30. Clear morning with increasing cloud coverage throughout the day and Calm wind with and occasional Light gust. Remained cold in the shade but temperatures felt much warmer in the sunshine on sunny slopes.
Snowpack
Generally shallow and wind-affected snowpack similar to much of the Sawatch Range. The snowpack is primarily composed of three layers: very weak depth hoar at the bottom 20-40cm that showed clear signs of rounding, a mid-pack slab 30-50cm thick that is 1F to 4F hard (on the hand hardness scale) and showing clear signs of faceting and losing strength, and 20-40 cm of decomposing fragmented particles from snow in late January that is showing clear signs of near-surface faceting with surface hoar development on the surface. This brings the average height of snow (HS) to around 70-120cm increasing with elevation. The deepest height of snow was around 160cm on wind-loaded slopes below ridgelines. Although the slab is supportable to snowmobiles, ski boot penetration is to the ground in most areas and numerous extended column tests just collapsed through the mid-pack slab after non-propagating failures on the new snow/old snow interface.