Vail & Summit County

Strong winds on Thursday built small wind slabs on east, southeast, and south-facing slopes at upper elevations. Avoid steep slopes if you find more than about 10 inches of recently drifted snow. You can trigger a larger, more dangerous avalanche in these spots. Look for and avoid areas where you find smooth lens-shaped pillows of snow. You are most likely to find dangerous conditions directly below ridgelines, near the sides of gullies, or on steep rollovers that catch and hold wind-drifted snow. If you trigger an avalanche in the freshly drifted snow, it has the potential to step down to deeper buried weak layers resulting in an inescapable slide.

It is getting harder to trigger avalanches that break deep in the snowpack, but if you find a weak spot and trigger one, it will be large and dangerous.