Vail & Summit County
Snowpackelliott bernhagen · Nov 17, 2010 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
I was on Vail pass yesterday all day from 8 am to 4 pm and it was snowing heavily all day with significant windloading on the north northeast aspect we were skiiing. Today there was at least 15 inches of new snow on shrine mtn road and more on windloaded slopes. weather today was warm and scattered clouds with no new accumulation.
Snowpack
We dug a pit and did a reutschblock test that failed upon the first ski weighting the block RB2Q3. The fracture failed on facets above a crust about a foot from the ground. It was a very uneven fracture (Q3), a soft slab of all the new snow, and we were on a mellow slope only about 200 ft long so we decided to ski despite the easy failure. The Q3 proved to be a big part of the test because even though it failed easily there was no ability to propogate a fracture. We ended up working our way to steeper slopes and eventually jumped off cliffs upwards of 35 ft with no activity.