Hoarfrost coated trees around Rangely last week as a winter storm warning predicted up to a foot of snow in the area. Several inches supplemented the thinning blankets of snow around town in what has been, so far, a relatively mild winter on the west side of the county.

Although Rangely hasn’t seen a substantial snowstorm since December, small accumulations of two inches or less over the last month have made for passable sledding conditions on the hills next to Rangely High School.

Park Mountain, standing 18 miles south of Rangely at the end of Dragon Road, remained shrouded in clouds for a week in early December as an inversion covering the valleys of eastern Utah and western Colorado persisted.