Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAndrew McWilliams · Jan 22, 2024 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Broken skies and light snowfall with temperatures in the mid-twenties and light winds that ranged from the south to the northwest. The light snow accumulated to about one inch during the day.
Snowpack
I generally found snow depths near 100cm in representative locations and up to 250cm in drifted areas. In all of my travels, the snow was supportable to ski travel, but I had full boot penetration whenever I stepped out of my skis. In a snowpit on a south aspect above treeline, I performed an Extended Column Test (ECT) with no result. After descending this pitch and looking back uphill, I noticed a recent avalanche on a similar slope a couple of hundred feet away from my pit location that failed below the most recent storm snow that began falling around January 4th. On a west aspect near treeline, I got propagating results in ECTs after 22 and 19 taps, but as I was walking around the pit, I caused a loud, rumbling collapse on the slope. In this same pit, a Propagation Saw Test (PST) had a failure to end after cutting 37cm along the January 4th weak layer. At the same elevation, there was a recent avalanche on a steep, east-facing slope that broke widely at the same interface. Below treeline on a southwest-facing slope, I got no results in an ECT, but had a failure to end after cutting 40cm in the January 4th weak layer. There were no other obvious signs of instability, like recent avalanches or cracking or collapsing, on this slope. I spoke with another group that descended northerly-facing trees below treeline and they reported lots of cracking and collapsing addition to multiple slabs that failed and slid a short way, but arrested due to a lack of slope steepness. In all of my