Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Spent the weekend at Peter Estin hut. Toured up to Prospector peak. MASSIVE cornices that were incredibly sensitive. One was 20+ feet out and as I traversed the ridge along the visible rocks a 15' section ripped out and exposed my poor judgement, cracking under my outside ski and crashing down to the valley below. When they say traverse on the rocks they mean on them, not beside them. Wow. Great teaching moment. General stability was quite good with no natural action visible to us, although below tree line we saw a selection of crusts from sun crusts to what must have been rain action from a couple of weeks ago to a possible crust from really warm weather(?). Depth of the snowpack varied wildly and was very wind affected.