Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Tim Bounds · Jan 24, 2021 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Broken clouds, some sun and calm weather around 9:30a @ 11,500". Became increasingly cloudy with winds picking up around 11:30a . "Flat light" conditions once cloud cover started to move in.

Snowpack

Variable/weird. Observed some small cracks in slabby pockets of wind-blown snow. Top-to-bottom weak snow in the trees on northerly aspects. More open/exposed terrain was a grab bag of near surface facets sitting on top of a slab, or stiff wind blown snow on top of near surface facets. All of the upper/mid pack variability still sits on top of depth hoar at/near the ground.

Avalanche

No avalanches observed; there was a small (D1/1.5) avalanche on an ENE aspect above tree line that looked like it was a few days old (see pictures).