Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Jaime Zinn · Feb 26, 2019 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Clear, bluebird day, several days since most recent storm

Snowpack

Snow depth ~ 220 cm; dug pit to 80 cm; knife-hard snow made digging (and Rutsch cord cutting!) below 150 cm v. difficult. Compression test gave two semi-clean breaks on tap 24 at 175 & 185 cm in soft-to-medium hard snow. Extended column showed similar breaks that did not propagate through the rest of the column. Shovel shear test on the remainder of the extended column eventually loosed the knife-hard snow in an impressive solid brick (see media). Overall, observations corroborate Spencer Logan's 25 Feb forecast (There are weak layers of snow in the middle and bottom of the snowpack. Those layers are buried under many layers of snow from storms and wind-drifting. The overlying snow makes it harder for you to get the weak layers to break... If you do get a slide to release it will be dangerously large. )