Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Jan 19, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Windy at ridgetop with light orographic showers persisting through the day. Cloud cover in the alpine obscured visibility and made it difficult to see recent avalanche activity throughout the range.
Snowpack
Little signs of instability except for one minor collapse. Widespread evidence of wind-transported snow with good bonding to the old snow surface. I dug a pit on an east facing slope near treeline that had varying layers of dense wind slabs sandwiching weak layers of facets. Total depth was 130cm with 2-3mm depth hoar and facets at the bottom. This was one of the few locations where I have observed DH in snowpacks over 1 meter all season. Full propagation on easy test scores was replicated 50cm down below a stiff slab on weak facets. Overall, the snowpack was highly variable in this location, mainly due to frequent wind-loading/transport.
Avalanche
None observed