Vail & Summit County
Quick reportJason Konigsberg · Mar 1, 2026 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Wet and warm. No wind in the area I traveled.
Snowpack
Besides the concerning structure on north and northeast below treeline mentioned above, I dug on east-facing slopes and found a much warmer snowpack. At 11,200 a thick crust buried by a couple inches of new snow was supportable and showed no signs of breaking down. The snowpack was moist throughout, looking like a snowpack going through a springtime transition. There were rollerballs on east-facing slopes at all elevations from the new snow warming under greenhouse conditions. Below about 10,500 the it felt warm and wet. The snowpack became unsupportable on some low-elevation southeast-facing slopes. It was easy to push the new snow into rollerballs and get it to sheet off the crust below, but there wasn't enough new snow to cause a big wet snow problem. More concerning for wet issues is that these lower elevations are getting saturated and becoming cohesionless and unsupportable.