Vail & Summit County
AvalancheWill Gordon · Jan 12, 2022 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Beautiful day. Few clouds, light west winds.
Snowpack
Variable surfaces: large surface hoar feathers in the valley bottoms. Some patchy thin crusts starting to form on solars. Great skiing on recycled powder / NSFs on sheltered shady slopes. We triggered a significant collapse with shooting cracks on a SW facing slope @ ~11700', 1F slab failing on 3mm facets, about 60 cms down. We initially had a few more whumphs while tiptoeing out, but as we descended the snowpack quickly lost structure and was mostly cohesionless. On the way up there were a few loud "wumphs" at a similar aspect and elevation. At least in this area, the persistent slab is present on the SW in the near treeline elevation band, above it is scoured and below it is mostly loose snow.
Avalanche
We saw 2 old avalanches on NE facing slopes, 11500-11900 elevation band. One in Little French and one on the S. Fork Swan side of Guyot. Both D2 and both were at least a few days old. We got a good look at the one on Guyot, it had failed within the old snow and the bed surface was gouged down to grass in a few spots. Suspect it was from before the snow on 1/8. From afar, the crown in Little French looked to be 2-3' thick and probably 300' wide. I couldn't get a good photo of it.