Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Dec 31, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Clear and cold. A few inches of new snow from the past few days remains soft/faceted
Snowpack
We dug a quick pit before skiing and found similar weak snow over weaker snow throughout the snowpack. Start zone elevation is around 11k and on these cold north facing slopes the mid-pack slab has completely lost strength. The upper 20-30cm is fist facets with a weak mid-pack barely hanging on to 4 finger in hardness. Lower 30cm is back to fist facets. Total snow depth where we dug was around 120cm. Still supportable with skis on, but the second I tried to step out with only boots, I sank to the ground.
Avalanche
We saw a few small natural loose dry avalanches in steeper terrain and figured that was due to the recent faceting in the upper snowpack. Unfortunately, the slope we descended had an old crown (probably from the mid-December storm) lower down in the path that we couldn't see from above. The small "sluffs" were actually due to the lack of snow and shallow conditions. The snowpack in these paths that had already slid were nothing more that new snow sitting on large facets from October. It was easy to initiate loose snow avalanches with every ski cut that sluffed to the ground. See attached pictures.