Details

• Date: 2016/12/08

• Observer: Jason Konigsberg, Ron Simenhois
• Organization: Forecaster, CAIC

Location

• BC Zone: Vail & Summit County
• Area Description: Little Professor slide path

Weather

• Weather Description: Skies were scattered to broken in the morning changing to overcast by 1 PM. The wind was calm at our near treeline location but small plumes of wind-drifted snow could still be seen on the high ridgelines such as the Ten Mile Range.

Snowpack

• Snowpack Description: The snowpack structure is poor and there are multiple layers of weak, faceted snow. Still, in many areas there is not enough of a slab. We only found a thick slab where the avalanche today was triggered. Moving a few feet away from the avalanche showed a very weak snowpack but no slab. See video and attached snowpit for more details.

Avalanches

	Date	Location/Path	#	Elev	Asp	Type	Trig	SizeR	SizeD
	2016/12/08  †	Other	1	TL	SE	HS	N	R1	D1.5
Date: 2016/12/08 (Estimated) Observer: Jason Konigsberg, Ron Simenhois Organization: Forecaster, CAIC Area Description: Little Professor slide path Landmark: Other Average Slope Angle: 36 ° Elevation: 12000 ft Sliding Surface: O - Within Old Snow Weak Layer: Layer Weak Layer Grain Type: Faceted Crystals Average Crown: 36 in Average Width: 30 ft

Media

Video

A look at a skier-triggered slide in the Vail and Summit County zone. This slide was 2 to 4 feet deep but not very wide. The video explains why avalanches will become larger and much more dangerous in the coming days.

Images