Vail & Summit County
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Nov 3, 2022 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Winds were light with some moderate gusts at ridgetop and overall light down off of the ridge. There was some light snow transport just near ridgetop but not loading down onto the slope. Skies started overcast and by afternoon there were breaks of sun with dry conditions.
Snowpack
Overall the snowpack is very thin. I found some knee deep drifts near ridgetop but these were very isolated and just right at the ridge. A few feet down off the ridge, the snowpack is about 8 to 10 inches deep on northerly slopes. Snow that fell early in October has turned into a thin, hard melt-freeze crust near the ground. Above this is snow from late October. This snow is faceting but still in the early stages with snow crystal .5 mm in size. The weakest snow is the snow that was at the surface before this recent storm. In places it is capped by a thin hard wind slab. This hard slab of snow slide easily on top of the buried near surface facets but the slab is very discontinuous and the largest area of continuous slab I found was about 5 square feet. On other non-northerly aspects, there is just a few inches of snow and really no continuous patches especially in steep and rocky terrain. it looks white from the road, but up close is much different.
Avalanche
None observed.