Steamboat & Flat Tops
AvalancheMax Strotbeck · Dec 3, 2024 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Beauty of a day. Cold morning that warmed up to near freezing. Few clouds, calm to light winds from the southwest, and no new snow.
Snowpack
Traveling primarily on north through east through southeast aspects, I found the height of snow ranged from 70-100cm. Surface hoar was widespread and ski penetration was about 15cm, though I punched much further through to near the ground when I stepped off my skis. The snow pits I dug on east and southeast aspects looked fairly similar- the upper two-thirds consisting of mostly rounded grains while the bottom third was mostly faceted grains. However, this lower third of the southeast pit showed various melt-freeze crusts sandwiching faceted layers, while the lower third of the east facing pit showed just one faceting melt-freeze crust immediately beneath the late November snow. The snow pit I dug on a north aspect told a different story. From top-to-bottom the whole snowpack was faceted with some rounding occurring in the mid-pack. Extended column tests did not propagate within the standard range (30 taps) on north and east aspects. It was only with an extra three and four taps respectively (ECTP33, ECTP34) that both columns propagated above the basal facets. The extended column tests I performed in two different snow pits on southeast aspects did propagate, one with moderate taps (ECTP13) and the other with hard taps (ECTP24). The failure plane was the same, immediately above the melt-freeze crust that formed prior to the late November snow, on a thin layer of 1-2mm rounding facets.
Avalanche
I saw recent small wet-loose avalanches on steep southeast aspects near rocks and cliff bands.