Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Kreston Rohrig · Feb 19, 2025 · Vail & Summit County

View on map
Observation photo 1Observation photo 2Observation photo 3Observation photo 4

Weather

There was an impressive layer of low clouds in the valley with sunny skies at higher elevation.

Snowpack

There is around 80cm of new soft snow sitting over a small 20cm harder slab, over a concerning crust/facet layer. This is likely our new Persistent Slab concern. The older facets making up the bottom half of the snowpack are starting to sinter and gain strength but are still relatively weak. The total snowpack depth was 205cm.

Avalanche

There was an impressive natural avalanche along the ridge above Waterdog/Olsen Lake that failed sometime in the past few days. This slope has failed at least once before, when I remote-triggered a large slide after the Thanksgiving storm cycle.