Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Dec 28, 2018 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Colder temps but pleasant if you kept moving. Surprisingly, no wind for most of the day with only a slight uptick from the south around 2pm. Skies were mostly clear with increasing cloud cover later in the afternoon.
Snowpack
I dug and probed around northeast and east facing slopes from 11600' to 12000'. These slopes have been heavily wind-loaded and snow depths ranged from 300cm to 120cm as you moved down slope. The thickest part of the slabs just below ridgeline quickly tapered within 50' of the ridge to a consistent 120cm. Where I dug, the snowpack was stiff and consolidated with multiple layers of 1 finger to pencil hard slabs stacked upon each other. No propagation in ECTs, and only a moderate failure on CTs 30cm down under the most recent wind-drifted snow. We didn't get up any higher onto Peak 1, but the snowpack and stiffer, wind-drifted slabs look more continuous across the higher elevation east facing slopes. As you move down into below treeline terrain, the snowpack weakens considerably and is only supportable if you keep your skis or board on. Boot Pen goes right to the bottom. Widespread surface hoar was observed on many aspects and may be a future problem if it gets buried by this next storm.
Avalanche
None observed