CAIC

CAIC: Colorado Avalanche Information Center

BC Zone Observation Report

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:00 AM
Vail & Summit County

Details

Date: 2011/01/25

Observer: Public

Location

BC Zone: Vail & Summit County
Area Description: Vail Pass, specifically Resolution Mountain.
Route Description: Skiing with Vail Powder Guides in and around Ptarmigan Mtn, Machine Gun Ridge, etc.

Weather

Weather Description: Mixed bag; partly sunny, sunny, light snow. Calm winds, temps ranged from 0-20.

Snowpack

Snowpack Description: We skied predominantly west facing and fairly shallow terrain above, near and below treeline. Mix of sastrugi up high along w/ various crusts and recently consolidated storm snow down slopes and in the trees.

Snowpack Obsvervation

Cracking: None
Collapsing: None

Avalanches

Date

Location/Path

#

Elev

Asp

Type

Trig

SizeR

SizeD

View

2011/01/25

Vail Pass

3

TL

E

R2

Media

Images

<b>Figure 1:</b> Slide(s) observed 1/25/10 on East face of Resolution Mountain from Machine Gun Ridge. Likely natural, though possible remote trigger by skiers in the area of Fowler Hilliard Hut. Actually three separate slides without a contiguous crown, total width of three slides was 1,500 feet, longest running of 3 slides was approx 1,200 feet. Distance was too great to discern crown depth with any accuracy, but all slides appeared to run on a uniform bed surface w/out stepping down to deeper layers. (<a href=javascript:void(0); onClick=win=window.open('https://caic-production.imgix.net/vybm0oao73d1tarw9nwz055zjxoj?ixlib=php-3.1.0&s=d356ccb48f9f4c6cc379840a7113244f','caic_media','resizable=1,height=820,width=840,scrollbars=yes');win.focus();return false;>see full sized image</a>)