Vail & Summit County
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Nov 18, 2018 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Blue skies, cool temps, no clouds, and light breezes at ridgetop. 2-3" of very low density new snow from Saturday night. On the drive home I saw some minor wind transport onto south slopes at the highest elevations.
Snowpack
New snow did not do much change overall stability. A few very small Loose Dry avalanches were observed in surrounding terrain. I dug a quick snowpit on a northeast-facing near treeline slope to compare my obs from yesterday near Leadville. The snowpack is generally stronger in the area I was in today with up to 1-finger hardness layers above a crust near the ground with 1-2mm facets at the ground. The facets are showing striations and could easily be called depth hoar. Overall snow depth is 75 cm and faceting and weakening of the overall snowpack is occurring.---Although the snowpack in this area is generally stronger than areas to the south, the structure in some way is more concerning. Weaker areas to the south will see a natural avalanche cycle with lighter loads while the snowpack in this areas will support a larger load with the potential to produce much larger avalanches. I have found a crust over basal weak layers on north slopes in the SAW and VS zones more often than not. A scary setup.
Avalanche
One old avalanche noted. Small, harmless loose dry avalanches noted as well.