Vail & Summit County
AvalancheJason Konigsberg, Ron Simenhois · Apr 21, 2025 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Windy, overcast and cool at ridgetop. Mild-feeling temps out of the wind.
Snowpack
We dug on a north-facing near treeline slope and found a 2 meter deep snowpack. There was 3 cm of recently drifted snow above a thin melt-freeze crust that formed on Sunday. Below this was 12 cm of still dry storm snow from the recent storm. The storm snow sits on a melt-freeze crust from the pre-storm warm-up. We found an ice layer, which is the refrozen wetting front from our mid-April warm-up, 21 cm from the surface or 186 cm from the ground. We also dug on a south-facing slope, mainly looking for the refrozen wetting front. The snowpack depth was 70 cm and the wetting front was 43 cm from the surface or 27 cm from the ground. Facets beneath the refrozen wetting front were still moist to the ground.
Avalanche
Avalanche observed near Loveland Pass