Vail & Summit County
AvalancheBrandon Levy, Jason Konigsberg · Jan 26, 2022 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Calm and cold conditions to start the morning gave way to breezier conditions by 1100. There were few lenticular clouds over the higher terrain looking east toward the Gore Range. I noticed wind loading above treeline along the Tenmile Range on the drive over. We did not see any snow moving in our travels today.
Snowpack
There is now a few inches of new snow above very weak near-surface faceted grains on northerly aspects and above fragile facet/ crust combinations on southerly-facing slopes. At the moment there is not enough snow above these weak layers to cause an avalanche problem where we traveled today. Moving forward, if/when we see another significant storm the northerly-facing slopes will not hold much load before we see avalanches failing on the near-surface facets. Southerly-facing slopes where there is the crust / facet combination may hold a bit more load initially but will likely produce larger avalanches once the thin crust collapses.---We mostly traveled below treeline but did not find any wind-drifted snow from last night or today.
Avalanche
None observed