Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg, Jeremy Primmer · Dec 12, 2021 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

Intense wind loading at ridgetop. Wind affect was less at lower elevations.

Snowpack

We investigating a recent avalanche in Stone Creek. It's unknown what the trigger was. It looked as if it was more than a day old. The avalanche was wide but wasn't very deep, due to the still thin snowpack and also it ran on a mid-pack crust in places. The slab of recent snow was generally fist hard, a bit harder where drifted, and about a foot thick. We dug around the crown and didn't get any results in extended column tests. It seems this avalanche may have ran at the end of the last storm. We dug in several other areas both east and north facing. There is a big difference in both snowpit tests and just the amount of whumpfing we got from north to east. North seemed touchy while east was much quieter. We watched constant wind loading onto east-facing above-treeline slopes above Waterdog Lake. There was one reasonably fresh avalanche and possibly a couple of older ones. All of these avalanches were narrow especially compared to some of the other reports coming in. To sum it up, we found the same weak snowpack that we have been finding all over on northerly-facing slopes. East-facing was relatively stronger. The snowpack is still thin. Sheltered areas below treeline have a one foot slab on top of weak snow but lots of ground obstacles. Near treeline is where the slab is much thicker and more dangerous due to recent wind loading. We didn't find reactive surface hoar in any of our pits, just weak near surface facets and more deeply buried, larger advanced facets.