Steamboat & Flat Tops

Avalanche

J. Messina · Jan 15, 2014

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Weather

Wx: few clouds, air temp was -6 C. No new snow, HS= 185 cm, winds were light out of the SSE. High winds yesterday (westerly with G39 at CAIC Steamboat Lake wx station).

Snowpack

Same location (east aspect, 9730'), see attached pit profile. Bottom of pack is consolidated and rounding off, but other persistent layers of buried NSF around crust layers are problematic. Pit was dug skier's right of a natural avalanche. Stability tests did not reflect the recent activity… CTH Q2 failed in upper layers. Wind loading appears to have been an issue in the avalanche, pit was dug in a much more sheltered area due to hang fire above the slide and had less of a wind affected layer at the surface than the crown/flank areas of the slide.

Avalanche

Same location, about 200' - 250' wide, crown of 2 - 4'. Bed surface was on 50 cm crust in pit profile. Appeared to have stepped down in 150 and 75 cm layers in some places on the crown. HS-N-D2-R3-O, appeared to have run in the last 24 - 36 hrs. Sorry about not getting a photo showing the whole avalanche, too many trees in the way when we were looking up at it.