Vail & Summit County

Windy with minimal snow transport.

Below treeline the snowpack remains shallow with approximately 40 cm in snow depth. There is no slab to be found anywhere below treeline. The snowpack is entirely faceted. On a southeast-facing slope, we found a fragile crust/facet combination just below the surface. Again, there is no slab, but surface conditions are faceted and weak. Near and slightly above treeline, we found a snowpack of around 70cm. There is a ~20 cm thick slab of drifted snow from the strong winds over the previous 72 hours. This slab is variable in thickness and doesn't connect across more than a terrain feature. We traveled through faceted, soft snow in between terrain features where we found these slabs. Although the near-surface facets underneath the newly deposited slab are very weak, we got mixed results in Extended Column Tests and no signs of instability. It would probably take a decent-sized storm to connect the terrain and produce large avalanches breaking on this buried weak layer. The snowpack is soft and faceted below this layer, so in the future, any large avalanches would step or gouge down.