Vail & Summit County
SnowpackKyle Ahern · Feb 16, 2013 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Approximately 10" of new snow had fallen in the past 24 hours, but it was blue skies and warm on the skin up. Upon reaching the ridge there was a pretty steady wind coming from the NW. A pretty large wind load was present on top of the ridge.
Snowpack
The new snow in the past 24 hours was light density. We used a low angle approach to gain the ridge and felt no signs of instability. There was no cracking or whumphing or any other obvious signs of instability on the approach. Although in some areas it was easy to sink through the new snow and other layers down to depth hoar. As soon as we gained the ridge there was obvious signs of wind loading. Very large cornice had built up and convex areas had big loads on them. Once on the ridge we were right at treeline. We could see three natural slides on S aspects. We also saw a skier triggered slide on a SW aspect. One skier triggered the small slide and we could see tracks out.