Vail & Summit County

Moderate snow transport from the northwest.

Yesterday's snowfall has already begun to be affected by the sun and wind, with a sun crust developing on southerly aspects and a wind skin on east aspects. These were thin, and skis could punch through, but it certainly made for some variable skiing. Where you found the tiger strip, the skiing was very pleasant. We dug on northeast and southeast aspects, and the structure was somewhat similar. The two weak layers of concern were the February facets and the basal facets. On sunnier aspects, these are separated by a variety of crusts and stronger layers. The basal facets were moist on a southeast aspect, and we were able to make a snowball from them. When digging this layer, it felt very weak, but it is starting to gain strength and was 1 finger to 4 finger hard. Continued warm weather should work on this further, and we should soon be able to remove southeast from the PSa rose. We dug on a shallow and weak northeast slope that was only about 80cm deep. At this location, the February facets were only about 30cm deep, and the slab above was weak and broke during a Propagation Saw Test. We did get propagation on the basal facets, showing the potential for avalanches to step down to the ground in weaker snowpack areas.