Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Typical for this winter...A mixed bag. On today's tour there was a thin supportive slab over Faceted grains near treeline. Above treeline polished hard slab under-lying a sandwich of facets and wind slab There has been enough north and northeast wind in the alpine to build small pockets of fresh soft wind slab. Recent snow was very low density so has taken little wind to transport snow out of fetches and into lee pockets. Ridges were fairly scoured or substantial sastrugi. Think the super low density snow from Saturday needed very little wind to move, and it got it. Had one crack episode ascending a 26 degree slope, at the bottom of the slope. Leads one to believe triggering a slab from low on the slope is a potential problem with the current snowpack but would be in isolated areas....needs pretty steep terrain above you.