Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Mar 8, 2022 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

There was no wind at 11k treed ridgelines and no visible transport. Temperatures were cold but it felt nice during the breaks of sun.

Snowpack

I traveled on mostly northerly below treeline slopes. The lower portion of this elevation band is very different than the upper most portion. Below about 10,000 feet the snowpack is only about a meter deep. When I got out of my skis, boot penetration was to the ground. There is a lot of faceted snow in these places but not much of a slab. The recent melt-freeze crust that sits under the new snow is really slick and the main area of concern for future loading. Right now, there is no slab on the crust and it is more of a loose dry avalanche problem. With additional low-density snow, I could see some larger loose avalanches running on this low-elevation northerly crust. If the new snow gets thickened by wind below treeline, the low-density snow on the crust could be a failure layer.---Above about 10,000 feet the snowpack gains depth and I found a snow height (HS) of 160 to 180 cm. There is a thin melt-freeze crust evident beneath the most recent storm snow but it was unreactive in tests. The snow beneath the crust was lightly faceted and something to watch in the future but not an issue now. I dug around quite a bit and only found one snowpit that showed a deeper persistent problem on near surface facets that were buried in early February. In this snowpit (a northwest-facing slope at 10,500 ft) there was a 65 to 70 cm slab on top of very weak facets. An extended column test produced a result of ECTP21. I performed numerous compression tests in numerous places on the layer of concern and mostly got unexciting results so I didn't take the stability tests any further with ECTs---Overall the snowpack was very quiet in my travels. No cracking or collapsing observed. I did get one large collapse in flattish terrain on a southerly slope but this is not representative of steeper southerly avalanche terrain where the crust is stout and thick.