Vail & Summit County
SnowpackMike Floyd, Kreston Rohrig · Jan 29, 2021 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Strong ridgetop winds out of the west-southwest. Very strong gusts. Increasing high clouds.
Snowpack
The strong wind left highly variable snowpack depths near and above treeline. Today's wind was strong out of the west-southwest, with plumes of snow off high peaks. Loading onto easterly aspects was limited as the fetches are once again pretty low on snow. Strong, erratic gusts swirled available snow with evidence of cross-loading in terrain downslopes. Near treeline there is 0-115 cm of snow with a variety of snow surfaces. Deeper areas had more weak snow near the ground. We dug a couple of snowpits on an east aspect near treeline. We found about a meter of faceted snow, with a couple of thin, unreactive wind slabs in the upper snowpack. Exposed areas are scoured to rock or pencil-hard snow. Some places a few feet away are sastrugi or breakable wind slab. A mixed bag of snow surfaces. The takeaway point is that the wind created a patchwork of future avalanche sensitivity. Spatial variability is high. Some areas will easily get more dangerous under modest new loads while proximal terrain may not see a perceptible change. The ability to pick terrain conservatively will be important when danger increases with new snow.