WC 567

Interesting pattern. I have no idea what made this trail.

Interesting, do you have a larger version?

Now those are unique tracks! Looks like the vertebrae on a spine. I like the simple curving design of the tracks across the sparkly snow. Your guess what made these sounds like a good one.

Cool pattern. I like the way your exposure caught the sparkle in the snow. (I always have a hard time getting that to show in images reduced to Web size.)
The imprints do look like they were made by a bird in some distress, but not necessarily a "lame" one. My guess would be a water bird -- perhaps a loon that landed away from open water by mistake. They need a water "runway" to take off, so they are easy prey for predators if they get stuck in the snow. Hopefully you were not far from open water!

This one successfully piques my curiosity. I would like to see it closer and sharper with a widish macro lens.

At this size, it's hard to be sure, but I think I see 4 separate paw prints in each group along with the sideways slash. ID in a picture like this is always challenging because I don't know the size scale. I'm also going to assume the the slash is a depression in the snow, not snow piled up. If there are 4 paw prints in each group, this animal is using what's called a rotary gallop. That eliminates rabbits, squirrels, and most rodents. Based on that elimination, my first guess would be someone in the weasel (Mustelidae) family, probably a mink or otter although why the tail would consistently land on one side is a mystery. In fact unless this is deep snow, seeing tail marks in this family is unusual. Your snow capture is great with the sparkles and I like the subtle shadows.