Vail & Summit County
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Mar 24, 2018 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Warm day with very little wind. Sky cover increased in the afternoon with some broken high cloud.
Snowpack
The snowpack below about 10,500 feet was barely supportable to skis in the afternoon. Trapdoor skiing on this saturated, isothermal snowpack. This is independent of aspect.---In a shallow area (HS=65cms), northeast, below-treeline I got a result of ECTP9 on depth hoar near the ground. ---As you climb up in elevation the snowpack becomes more supportable and on shady slopes the only moist and wet layers are within 6 inches of the surface. The settled storm snow of 4 to 6 inches easily rollerballed but did not gouge into deeper layers.---I felt it would have been easy to intentionally trigger a Loose Wet avalanche if we were on a steep enough slope. The moist storm snow wanted to slide on an underlying crust.---On the easterly, near-treeline slopes we observed a thin crust beneath the most recent snow. One wind-loaded steep terrain feature produced shooting cracks showing that small Wind Slab avalanches are still possible.