Vail & Summit County
SnowpackDan McGarry · Dec 13, 2013 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
The day started off with few clouds then changing to broken by 1pm. Temps were 28-25 through out the day. A due W wind blowing up hill and taking what little snow is left for transport. Gusts were in the ~30's.
Snowpack
The snowpack changed widely throughout the ski tour. Solar aspects have seen rapid settlement with sun crust present and forming, depths no grater than 25cm. Collapsing was localized to open areas with few trees on SW aspects, no collapsing on the due S aspects. As we moved to W and NW aspects the depth changed to 130cm with collapsing in ~10ft radius. There is no cohesion in the snow pack here. The Thanksgiving day warm up crust that the new snow from the last couple weeks buried, has been heavily eroded and faceted due to the high temperature gradient. Fist density throughout the whole snowpack. The collapsing seems to be occurring on the interface between the last significant snow fall event and the facets from the cold snap.