Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Feb 7, 2018 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

The wind increased through this morning with drifting snow apparent across the higher ridgelines and peaks. By mid-afternoon wind speeds seemed to decrease as well as wind loading.

Snowpack

Winds today developed a stiff slab that would crack under skis. We did not see any avalanches that were purely Wind Slab avalanches but we did see two large Persistent Slab avalanches that were a result of wind loading. Stiff, wind-drifted slabs exist on east through south-facing slopes and it is expected that the reactivity of these slabs will be decreasing.---On westerly-facing slopes, near to below-treeline we found a 70 to 80cms deep snowpack with a thin layer of depth hoar resting on a pencil hard crust near the ground. This snowpack structure resulted in a D1 remotely-triggered avalanche by our party today.