Vail & Summit County

Warm and breezy. It didn't feel hot at any point, probably due to the lower sun angle of the March sun, compared to how it can feel on hot May days. This has been true throughout the entire warm-up.

On a northeast near treeline slope, the snowpack was 85 cm deep where I dug. The wetting front was at about 50 cm from the ground, wetting a weaker and softer layer of faceted snow. The basal facets and depth hoar were moist too, but I didn't see water around these snow crystals. I wasn't able to initiate any cracks in an Extended Column Test. A Propagation Saw Test was unimpressive with a result of 50/100 end when cutting 30 cm from the ground. Most collapses were where the snowpack was about 60 cm or less, near shrubs and rocks and the edges of slopes. On northwest through northeast-facing above treeline slopes, it's still a winter snowpack. Everywhere I dug in these places, I found a thick, consolidated hard slab of snow sitting on weaker layers near the ground. The basal facets are still impressively four-finger hard or even softer.