Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Jan 25, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Temps warmed up in the valley bottom to where snow surfaces were becoming sticky. Scattered clouds with light winds at ridgetop.
Snowpack
Recent storms have added a significant amount of snow giving the snowpack a solid mid-winter feel. Around 12" of new snow was rapidly settling into a soft mass similar to "whipped cream cheese". This has really filled in shallow areas and improved coverage. Snowpack height varied with aspect and elevation but was deeper than I've seen in normally thin south facing slopes below treeline. The thinnest slopes were 80cm+ and finally covered most of the normally plaguing ground hazards. Moving upslope the consistent snow height ranged from 120-150cm below treeline and topped out at 220cm near treeline. We dug on an ESE facing slope at 11200' and found a deep and uniform snowpack. The only layers of concern were two buried melt/freeze crusts 80 and 90 cm deep. Neither layer was reactive in stability tests (ECTX). No cracking or collapsing was observed on any aspect we traveled.
Avalanche
None observed with a good view of the Gore Range.