Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Jan 26, 2017 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Skies were broken to obscured with a few snow flurries at times and no real accumulation. Winds were breezy below treeline but probably just felt worse then they were with the frigid temps.
Snowpack
No cracking or collapsing or recent avalanches observed. On northerly sheltered aspects the recent storm snow is not very cohesive and is starting to sluff in steep terrain. Not much of a slab. I dug a snowpit on a southerly below treeline aspect and got very poor test results with extended column tests propagating on anywhere from 2 to 5 taps, breaking on faceted snow above a melt-freeze crust. I found broken surface hoar crystals intermixed with well-defined small facets. The melt-freeze crust was not bonded to the snow above or below and it seemed like it was just floating in the snowpack.