VAIL, Colo. — In Vail, a snowy winter has the snowpack slightly above average at 105% of normal and there's a pile of snow growing to an impressive sight to see.
Peter Wadden is the watershed education coordinator for the town of Vail. All winter long the snow around town is picked up and dumped into a field by the public works department, Wadden said.
By April that pile of snow towers over the buildings there.
"That vertical aspect is pretty substantial,” said Wadden. “There’s a heck of a lot of snow out here.”
The snowpack typically peaks around April 10 in the Vail area and it’s reached a big peak this year with a pile of snow that’s longer than a football field and several stories tall.
It's so big semi-trucks drive up onto it to dump more snow and snowcats pack it all down.
“This is tamped down with tractors and snowcats,” said Wadden. “They drive up on it to spread the snow out and manage where the snow is distributed as the snow melts.”
That snow will be melting for a while, it likely won’t be until August or September before all that snow is gone.
As it melts, the water runs through a filtration system under the pile to keep trash, debris oil, and sand from flowing into the nearby Gore Creek.
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