Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Feb 15, 2022 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Temperatures well above freezing all day. The winds were light to moderate out of the west. A handful of high altitude clouds started to move into area in the afternoon but remained sunny all day.
Snowpack
The words that come to my mind to describe the snowpack are incredibly weak. I traveled on slopes that faced north, east through west today, mostly below and near treeline. I did not notice any signs of instabilities such as cracking or collapsing, but I observed weak faceted snow. This weak snow made for challenging travel conditions because your ski penetration was about 30cm. You would sink a little further every once in a while. I dug a snowpit on a west aspect near treeline and found the snow height to be 95cm and almost all soft facets. The one notable layer was a 1Finger hard layer of facets 10cm thick. I got a hard propagation results (ECTP24 at 27cm from the ground) on large depth hoar crystals. While the recipe for a Loose Dry avalanche was there, we lacked one ingredient, extreme terrain (40 degrees or greater). When I moved to a northeast-facing slope near treeline, I found a widely varying snow height from 45cm to 150cm. I chose to dig in a shallow spot which again was made up of all facets, with even larger depth hoar near the ground (3-4mm). I got medium propagation results (ECTP20 25cm from the ground). This shallower portion of the snowpack is where you would most likely be able to trigger an avalanche. This weak layer won’t take much to collapse once we have an additional load on top. Anything that had a southerly tilt a melt freeze crust on it. I found an inch or two thick crust in places while other places I found 2cm thick crust.
Avalanche
A fresh avlanche on a northeast face above treeline on Bald Mountain that lookes like it yesterday.