Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Mar 21, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Warm day with scattered cloud cover. Light southerly wind at ridgeline.
Snowpack
The snowpack is quite deep in this area. Even below treeline HS topped 200+cm. I dug on a north facing slope near treeline at 11000' and found a deep and strong snowpack. The upper 20cm is faceting, but below that there were not many or any perceptible weak layers. HS was 230cm and was mostly 1 finger hard with a few 3-5cm layers of 4F rounding facets 90+cm down. Interestingly, the mid to lower snowpack was moist and super easy to make a snowball, even down at the lowest layer of old facets that are snow rounded. In another pit 50' away, my partner found an HS of 280cm with a couple of layers of buried near surface facets 60cm down and 80cm down. ECTX in both locations.
Avalanche
Saw what looked to be a Wet Slab avalanche on a steep south facing slope. Debris was very muddy/dirty