Vail & Summit County
SnowpackDrew Gibson · Apr 17, 2024 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Partly cloudy with periods of intense sun. Gusty winds at ridgecrest and on southerly slopes. HOT.
Snowpack
Below 12,000ft the recent snow has been sun effected and after the next freeze will be a mix of breakable crusts with refrozen melt forms below the surface. I dug a number of shallow pits on different aspects to look at the old/new snow interface. I could coax sheer failures a few centimeters up from the old snow on a difficult-to-detect density change in the recent snow. In the pits I dug the recent snow lacked enough cohesion to propagate as a slab. In the many places I dug the majority of the old snow was soft and wet to the ground except for some thin layers of frozen pooled melt water and intermingled ice masses. On a southerly aspect near 11,400ft, I sank mostly to the ground in wet snow when I stepped out of my skis. The recent snow helped insulate the old snow so it's going to take a big freeze to lock the deeper layers up. I saw one recent wind slab from a distance near Crystal and Pacific Peaks. I was able to cause a few Loose Wet avalanches on steep northeast-facing slopes. these did not fan out in the upper tracks but only entrained snow the length of my ski. After some cold temps, the surface snow will be less of an issue for wet slides below 11,800ft-ish.