Vail & Summit County
SnowpackDrew Gibson · Mar 3, 2024 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Snowing S1. Above 12,000ft moderate to strong southerly winds with occasional stronger gusts and whiteouts. Further into the afternoon, the winds slowed a bit and there were periods of S2 snowfall.
Snowpack
Around 11,000ft along the McCullough Gulch Road I jumped on some steep road banks that had a ~5cm melt-freeze crust under the new snow and I couldn't get anything to move with any speed. This was similar on slopes at higher elevations that had little wind effect. A quick pit on an open east-southeast slope around 11,600ft revealed about 100cm of snow with a complex series of melt-freeze crusts nearly to the ground. There was 20cm of new snow that appeared to be bonding well. The dreaded dust is present in the bottom 5cm or so of the new snow. Above treeline, southerlies felt (I couldn't see much) mostly stripped but drifts were forming behind terrain features. In the few places I found reactive wind-loaded snow on the southerlies and easterlies, the failures were on the dust layer above the old/new snow interface. Moving to the northerlies the new snow felt thicker, but the hand hardness was still soft (Fist hard). The snowpack is much deeper with 120-150cm on average. The lovely early February buried surface hoar layer was present in multiple locations. On an east-facing wind-affected slope at 11,900ft the buried surface hoar was down almost 70cm and sandwiched between to firmer layers. Though Compression Test scores were moderate, propagation tests had more stubborn results (see the attached pit). On a wind-sheltered north-facing slope at 11,600ft, the same weak layer was present and had more reliable failures likely attributed to less variability in the wind loading. (see attached picture). More concerning in this area, both the buried surface hoar and the basal facets would fail simultaneously during tests. This result was less reliable but it foreshadows the potential for avalanches to step down.