Steamboat & Flat Tops

Snowpack

Dug a pit on a 25 deg slope on a North aspect. The snow depth averaged 90cm with a very uniform look to it. Bottom 30cm was composed of grains with a density between 1F and 4F and looked to be either rounding facets or frozen grains with ice bonds approx 2-3cm. This base layer did not have typical loose depth hoar grains. The next 30cm was 4F hardness of uniform rounded particles. Layered on top of this was 10 cm of F melt grains presumably from the recent high temp days last week. This interface was where we got our collapses of CT15, and CT12 , non planar release. Top 20 cm was dense wind packed DF Group of 3 skiers and 1 boarder skied N and Nw pitches from 25 to mid 30 deg slopes with no sign of instability.