Vail & Summit County

I saw about 4 small cornice fall avalanches on very steep east-facing slopes above treeline near the summit of Glacier Mountain. One of these broke as a Wind Slab avalanche, but, surprisingly, none triggered deeper layers. Additionally, I saw multiple small Loose Dry avalanches from cornice fall near Bear Peak this morning. An older, large (D2) Persistent Slab avalanche, likely from last weekend, was observed below Little Bear Peak. It was possibly triggered by Loose Wet avalanches from above, with the crown in the middle of the path, well below the ridge.

There was about 4 inches of new snow and moderate to strong northwest winds with broken skies and temperatures in the 10s and 20s.

The new snow was forming a soft slab just below ridgetop, about four fingers on the Hand Hardness Scale. I got some minor cracking and propagation after a single tap in an Extended Column Test (ECT), but there was surprisingly little Wind Slab avalanche activity. It looked like a number of sluffs were triggered from cornicefall right when the wind picked up. I got harder propagating results deeper in the snowpack in all of my ECTs, the depth varied, but the results were all at the interface with the basal facet layer. There were also mid-pack weak layers, although they weren't reactive in my snowpits. Again, this was surprising since most of the recent avalanches broke on these layers before stepping down.