Vail & Summit County

Single-digit temperatures in the morning rose to the 20s by the late afternoon with ample sunshine and light winds.

Like the rest of the Northern Mountains, the snowpack is still shallow here for this time of year. I found about 30 to 40cm of snow on the ground crossing below treeline meadows. The west-facing slopes I ascended near and below treeline didn't have much more snow than what I found in the meadow. The crust below the most recent snow was supportable for skis on this slope. Near treeline, when the aspect turned to face northwest, the snow cover became highly variable and obviously wind-affected. Areas of bare ground quickly transitioned to meter-deep drifts within a few feet. Above treeline, all westerly-facing slopes were almost completely scoured of snow. Where I dug on a northeast-facing slope below a ridgeline at treeline, I found drifts over a meter deep, and the average depth was about 80cm. I found two different crust layers on top of the slab of snow from the storm around December 6. There was about 10 to 20cm of new, drifted snow from December 28 resting on the upper crust. The top crust is from the warm weather around Christmas. The lower crust was a more variable layer and had dirt and pine needles in it, likely from the extreme wind event around December 18. I didn't find any faceted grains between the top crust and the most recent snow, but I did find a layer of facets below the dirty crust, resting on the slab from the December 6 storm. While this is my primary layer of concern, it's not an issue at the moment. Steep test slopes and natural cornice fall on nearby slopes didn't produce any cracking or collapsing, and I didn't see any recent avalanches on drifted easterly-facing slopes. Variable test results in my snowpit also make me think it's missing all the ingredients to be an issue at the moment. While the snow cover on the northwest-facing slopes was very different than on the northeast, I found a very similar snowpack in a quick snowpit in a drifted spot. An early December slab, then two crusts, then some new snow. While I still got one result in the basal facet layer in my snowpits, and you can find weak snow near the ground in most places with continuous cover, it seems like this layer is unreactive on the slope scale at the moment. We'll see what happens if we ever get another big storm, but I think the crusts in the upper snowpack are the layers to watch for the immediate future.