Vail & Summit County
AvalancheDavid Dellamora · Jan 9, 2014 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Trending from BKN to OVC by the late afternoon. Likewise, snowfall gradually increased from S-1 to S2 by 5pm. Westerly winds were generally Moderate.
Snowpack
While digging on easterly aspects near TL we observed SP and SC fracture characteristics but no signs of propagation. However, a few hundred feet higher in the terrain a fairly destructive persistent slab avalanche existed as an obvious sign of instability. Generally, the snowpack is top heavy with the recent pencil hard wind slab, a mid-pack composed of faceted grains and eroding melt forms, while the lower third is composed of large depth hoar resting on an patchwork of ice forms.
Avalanche
The average depth of the debris we probed was 1.5 meters.