Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Jan 30, 2018 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Warm day with gusty winds at ridgetop. A lot of snow being stripped from westerly slopes, but not effectively loading leeward areas.
Snowpack
No recent avalanches, collapsing or shooting cracks noted in our travels.---The snowpack below treeline is generally faceted up to about 11k ft. Although a generally harder slab sits over weak basal layers, the snow crystals are mostly faceted and the slab is brittle and unlikely to communicate a fracture. Snow depth is about 70 cms. The snowpack depth increases by at least a foot once you get to 11,200 feet and the near-treeline elevation band. Along with the deeper snowpack the slab is thicker, more cohesive and still shows propagation propensity in test. ECTs were hard or non-existent results but PST had a result of 30/100 END. This PST result is remarkably consistent throughout the zone in near-treeline snowpack tests. The stability tests show that avalanches will be stubborn to trigger but if you initiate a crack in the depth hoar layer it can propagate across a slope with a similar snowpack.---A thin wind slab was found to be reactive in tests. It is only a few inches thick and would only be a problem in consequential terrain. The older wind slab that formed about 5 days ago sits over buried NSF but was found to be unreactive in tests.