Vail & Summit County
AvalancheScott Toepfer · May 8, 2016 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
At West Portal, 11,200 ft it was 30 degrees at 8 AM. Temperature at Pt 12,800 feet at 10 am was 21F. Clouds quickly increased again, but much colder, & the threat of Lightning was significantly reduced this morning. The SW wind was bitingly cold on the ski descent. 1 inch new from Saturday night. Can still make out dust layer from February 18th (?) event.
Snowpack
Temperatures Saturday night were a good 10 degrees colder, and snowpack got a good solid freeze. Boot penetration an inch deep. Recent winds in isolated areas created drifts of from 6 to 10" deep. There were some west aspect gully features noted where the drifts formed into long vertically running convex rolls, and drifted snow looked much deeper. Many east aspects were stripped back to old dust layer.
Avalanche
This steep, short, convex roll shaped path probably ran during the last upslope snow event. End of April time frame estimated