Vail & Summit County

Clearing skies with decreasing winds and cold temps.

We found new snow amounts of 2 to 4 inches. This snow fell on a mostly thin crust over a faceted and shallow snowpack. The snowpack depth is 20 to 45 cm. The crust is breakable on the uphill but supportable enough to stay on top of the thin snowpack on the downhill; otherwise, it would have been nearly impossible to keep skis on. The crust, facet structure just beneath the new snow, is similar to what I found on Independence Pass on Saturday. This weak snowpack structure would easily produce avalanches if there were to be a slab, but slabs are almost nowhere to be found. There isn't much difference overall between the snowpack on the west side of the Tenmile Range and the Sawatch Range around Independence Pass. Also, nowhere to be found are supportable rain crusts, capable of supporting a load, like people are finding in mountain ranges with lower elevation terrain.