Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Jan 30, 2020 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Snowing and blowing. Visibility was difficult but I would think that southerly and easterly slopes were receiving wind-drifted snow from northwesterly wind.

Snowpack

I went to look at west-facing slopes where we have seen recent avalanche activity. I found a snow height of 114 cm in a below treeline location at 11,200 feet. The weakest layer is faceted snow about 55 cm from the surface. There is also very weak snow near the ground. Neither of these layers produced propagating test results. In two pits near treeline I got propagating results on both of the above mentioned layers. The near treeline snowpits ranged in depth from 120 cm to 140 cm. Overall the snowpack structure is not great but results in tests were inconsistent. The common theme in all snowpit is that there is now a slab over weak layers on normally thin west-facing slopes. The snowpack is winter-like with the only crust being a paper-thin crust near the surface.