Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Kreston Rohrig · Mar 11, 2021 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Surprisingly calm day with greyish skies and warm temps. Little to no evidence of ongoing wind-loading around the higher peaks.

Snowpack

Highly variable snowpack near treeline in this area of the 10-Mile. Wind distribution has left a mixed bag of deep snow right next to shallow. We found snow depths from 75-90cm twenty feet away from 150-160cm. One consistent theme from both pits, and across all terrain, is a reasonably thick and supportive melt/freeze crust just below the recent few inches of snow. In the more shallow areas, this crust caps layers of facets and large depth hoar chains at the bottom. Where deeper areas have a stout pencil to 1 finger mid-pack slab sitting over 4 finger facets at the ground. Even with the spectrum of depths and layering, it would be hard to trigger an avalanche in this area. Other slopes with more of a consistent or connected slab could be a different story.

Avalanche

None observed.