Steamboat & Flat Tops

Avalanche

Eric Haskell · Dec 27, 2018 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

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Weather

Broken skies, cold temps dropping throughout day, light breeze from the east.

Snowpack

Some collapsing on south aspect. Dug down to investigate and found crust facet crust sandwich. Two pits on south aspect, one in trees and one higher up in the open, both showed propogation that jumped out with ECT. Probing showed layering was widespread on similar elevations and aspects. Top crust was very thin dew crust? and lower crust was larger melt-freeze crust. Seemed like mostly facets between crusts but possibly surface hoar too? Probing showed thin dew crust was also present on north aspect at similar depth as the south - about 60cm down. Surface hoar was buried under it. 3 prominent surface hoar layers in top 100cm of snowpack found. Propagation found in ECT.

Avalanche

Small loose dry avalanches noted under steep south facing rocks.