Vail & Summit County
AvalancheKreston Rohrig · Jan 18, 2019 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Snowing and blowing hard once you left the protection of treed terrain. Active wind-loading with strong NW winds was scouring fetches and loading everything from south to east. Snowfall continued all day with storm totals in the 6-8" range.
Snowpack
Leeward slopes near and above treeline and open slopes below treeline were actively loading. Thick drifts of wind-driven snow were forming 1-3' thick below ridges, on the back side of rollovers, and behind rock and tree outcroppings. Visibility was poor, so it was hard to judge things on a bigger scale, but in the area observed, new soft cornice growth and thick wind slabs were forming below the ridge I traveled on. Leeward aspects were predominately east and south. Very little cracking was observed in new wind-drifts and no collapses.
Avalanche
It was hard to tell if the fresh avalanche I observed went natural or was remotely triggered form me moving around on the ridge above it. Regardless, it wrapped around the nose of the ridge I was on from southeast to south aspects. The avalanche failed in the new storm snow, which was deeply drifted on this slope, but did not break into deeper layers. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the entire east side of the ridge ran naturally earlier in the day. There were rocks showing in the middle of the paths in the steeper sections and looked like they had either been scoured out by previous winds or an avalanche had ripped to the ground. .