Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Dec 5, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Grey day with socked in, low level clouds. Light winds at ridgetop with only a couple of inches of new snow on the ground.
Snowpack
Significant variability in snow cover due to recent strong winds last week. South facing, wind-ward slopes were scoured to bare ground and were barely covered by recent snowfall. On the opposing north and east facing slopes thick 1-3 meter wind slabs have formed just below ridgeline, but don't extend very far down slope. I dug a pit on a northeast facing slope in an open, but fairly protected area. The results were not inspiring. With an 80cm deep snowpack, the bottom 40cm were weak fist hard facets. This is likely snow from the end of October/early November and will likely be a problem form weeks/months to come. Above this layer a moderately strong slab is starting to build. I had repeatable propagating results on ECTs, both failing on the interface below the slab into the weak basal facets. This poor snowpack structure has been observed in other portions of the zone and state, and is most pronounced on shadier northerly and easterly slopes.
Avalanche
Nothing new from today, but I did observe a few avalanche that likely failed sometime this past week.