Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAnonymous · Mar 23, 2014 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Sunny, moderate winds in valley, strong winds at ridge top. Significant blowing snow at ridgetop, but much sublimating into the atmosphere and only some transported. Temps stayed cold above treeline.
Snowpack
Dug pit on SSE aspect @ 13,000' above treeline, 34 degree slope. 197cm total snowpack depth. Top 45cm consisted of a variety of new snow, thin melt-freeze crusts and thin facet layers, and 1F-2F old snow. Below 45cm was very dense (pen) snow. It was not possible to dig below 60cm due to very firm snow, even jumping on the shovel blade. Using a probe to punch through, this dense snow seemed to persist through essentially the entire snowpack, with a slight decrease in resistance right above the ground. Forgot notebook, so no notes of exact test results/depths. New snow from Sat (approx 10cm) reacted easily but did not propagate, ECTN3. Failure at 45cm occurred at ECTN23 again with no propagation. Higher along the ridge we experienced some minor and localized cracking in the new snow, and localized fresh windslabs up to ~8in depth. Could not get anything to propagate and run on small, convex test rolls, but avoided the large, steep convexity in the South Couloir.
Avalanche
None observed.