Vail & Summit County
AvalancheDaniel MacDonald · May 26, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Solid freeze the prior night gave way to mostly clear skies and a fairly rapid warmup. Very light to negligible winds.
Snowpack
I didn’t experience the snowpack where the slide occurred because I had skied a slightly more northerly aspect more narrow/higher-walled terrain (ie less sun-affected). That said, in my run I could definitely feel the much softer snow at skier’s left (ie more east facing aspect) than the drier skier’s right. I imagine with Silver’s wider and more easterly profile leading to greater warming impacts it was softer than even my run’s left side. For me, it was firm and stable (sluffs were loose & dry), but the left side was quickly softening with the full sun and warming temperatures, especially the lower I got.
Avalanche
Unfortunately as I only crossed under the debris pile at about 10000’, I don’t know the starting elevation. From the picture, it looks like at least one group skied prior the the avalanche (tracks in front of debris pile) and at least one group skied after it (tracks above left in pic showing that they went around the pile). Size of the debris seem to imply wet slab to me. As well, I believe I see a crown (straight almost horizontal line near the top of one fo the pics). As I wasn’t there when it happened, I don’t know if it was natural or human-triggered.