Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Mar 12, 2020 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Cloudy to start the day, but the skies broke later in the afternoon. Gusty winds swirled and moved around the inch or two of graupel and new snow that fell early this morning.
Snowpack
Gusty winds and cloud cover kept most lower elevation snow surfaces cool through mid-afternoon. Thick surface crusts up to 4" deep provided a very supportable surface and showed little signs of warming or weakening. The new snow from early this morning (mostly graupel) had blown around and formed smooth slabs 2-6 inches deep near-treeline and on leeward slopes in the alpine. The newly formed slabs seemed very well bonded and fairly contiguous. Later in the day on the ski out, the sun had come out and snow surfaces began to soften slightly. The late day sun did little to ramp up the wet avalanche potential.
Avalanche
Looked like a fairly fresh wet slab just a little north of the Copper Mt Exit. Saw it on the way to the trailhead this morning, but hard to say exactly when it failed.