Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Nov 27, 2020 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Beautiful day with clear skies and not a lick of wind. The day started cold but warmed into the 20s by midday.
Snowpack
Below treeline the snowpack ranged from 40-60cm and lacked any significant slab. The structure is supportive, but is mostly new snow and small grained facets. We dug up higher below a wind-drifted ridge around 11400'. Here we found denser slabs formed by recent storms and westerly winds. Two layers of concern were observed and link to directly to recently triggered avalanches. There is a layer of small facets and decomposing fragments below the most recently formed slab 25cm from the surface (recent wind slab activity). This is sandwiched between two 1 finger slabs. The second, and more reactive layer in stability tests, is a 10cm stripe of 2mm facets at the ground (more concerning persistent slab avalanches). This is likely old snow from October.
Avalanche
We observed numerous small avalanches from across the valley that likely failed a few days ago. Nothing fresh. These were below the east-facing ridge of Bald Mt.