Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Spent the morning skiing on Quandary peak. Above 12,600 it was 6-12" thick powder on top of frozen snowpack. Below that, down to treeline the sun had set up the new snow a little more. There were new windslabs on lee areas 1-2.5 ft thick. I didn't ski on any of these. Last weekend I skied a route in the West Elks that gave me a view of almost the entire range. I was amazed that none of the frequent surface sloughs triggered anything deep anywhere in the range (this despite the fact that the snowpack below the new snow was mostly wet and unfrozen except on ridgetops). We were conservative nevertheless.