Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAnonymous · Jan 23, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
It was surprisingly warm even at the summit of east vail/Red Peak. Probably a 15-20mph wind out of the southish. Snow got really heavy down in the lower elevations and was even more noticeably heavy on my second lap later in the day.
Snowpack
Rode a heavily treed run in big horn & racquet club areas. In the the steeper stops above cliffs (40 plus degrees and not the cliffs at the top, I avoided those) it was sluffing but there didn’t seem to be much of a slab that existed near the surface. Pole probing certainly revealed soft powder slowly getting denser while about mid ski pole returning to softer weak snow, but again there was not a huge difference in densities at least the length of my 135cm ski pole. But the firm snow above weaker snow still made me too nervous to expose my self to anything that was actually open and steep.
Avalanche
Avalanche on west Marvin’s that looked fairly fresh. Could only see it from the ridge on the way to joint point but it looked 1-2 feet deep and consisted of at least the newest snow and then some.