Vail & Summit County
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Apr 8, 2021 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Very windy and mostly cloudy for most of the day with a few breaks of sun in between fast-moving clouds. There were even a few snow flurries in the morning. Clouds decreased around 3 PM with mostly sunny skies.
Snowpack
No signs of instability observed. We had no concerns for any wet avalanches today. Our main concern was small wind slabs in extreme terrain but that did not seem to come to fruition either. There was recently wind-drifted snow midslope but very little near ridgetop. Looking around at adjacent ridges, wind drifting seemed minimal. On our exit at 2 to 4 PM the snowpack was still firm and supportable until we reached about 10,500 ft. The snowpack is really thin here and we trenched to the ground quite a bit. It might be hard to find a steep slope with enough snow to produce an avalanches at this low elevation. Isolated works to describe this.
Avalanche
Loose Wet avalanches observed off of south-facing Mt Silverthorne most likely from April 3 to 5 and also steep near treeline terrain off of Red Peak