Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Kreston Rohrig · Jan 16, 2021 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Some broken clouds and a light breeze at ridgetop. A couple of inches of new snow with mild temperatures.

Snowpack

The snowpack has weakened significantly in this part of the zone. Clear cold nights have helped degrade the mid-pack slab, which is sandwiched between weaker facets above and below. Only in isolated terrain features could I find evidence of new hard slabs formed during the high winds last week. In these spots, the slab was discontinuous, but very hard (pencil +). The snowpack would mostly hold my weight with skis on, but boot pen went straight to the ground. No propagation in ECT tests. In this piece of terrain it would be hard to trigger a slab avalanche right now.

Avalanche

None observed