Vail & Summit County

Single digit to below zero temperatures with moderate westerly winds and light snowfall - no accumulation.

Recently drifted snow from around Valentine's Day through this storm is forming two layers of snow resting on a softer layer of small, near-surface facets. The topmost layer was about 15-20cm thick from the snow that fell over the past two days. Increased winds last night drifted this into slabs resting on a very dense, but thinner layer of faceting rounds. That 5cm thick layer is resting on the near-surface facets. I got some localized cracking in the newest snow, but no shooting cracks. That said, the test slopes I approached were not especially steep. I did get one very small pocket of the newest snow to slide on the very dense snow immediately below it, not the near-surface facet layer, although I wouldn't call the release a proper avalanche. There was another thick and dense slab below the near-surface facet layer resting on another layer of facets from late January. The lower layer was unreactive in an Extended Column Test. I did get propagating results in the near-surface facet layer about 25cm below the surface, but only after multiple blows from the shoulder.