Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Ian Fowler · Mar 8, 2022 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

Winds were calm to light today and there was no snow being transported. Skies were overcast in the morning with flurries of snow and afternoon the skies began to clear.

Snowpack

Below treeline, the snowpack was about 60 to 70cm deep and had very little structure on north and northwesterly aspects. On southerly facing slopes, there was a stout crust with 10 to 15cm of new snow on top. Near treeline, we dug on northwest and east aspects. On both these aspects, the weak basal layers had gained strength. The midpack and upper snowpack were weak on northwest aspects, and we got propagating failures on a melt-freeze crust at 120cm (75cm down). As expected, there was a melt-freeze crust under the new snow on easterly aspects. This layer was stout and about 5cm thick. Surprisingly there was an ice layer at 135cm (35cm down). This layer had facets below and had a very clean collapse in an ECT. Deep tap tests and beating down on the column gave no deeper results. As soon as we traveled around to a northeast aspect, both crusts weakened and disappeared.