Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Jan 27, 2023 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Cold, blustery day. Light to moderate wind loading occurring onto easterly slopes at ridgetop. There wasn't much wind or loading just 50 to 100 feet down off of the ridge.
Snowpack
Small wind slabs were building directly below ridgetop on easterly slopes. On a northeast-facing slope that we dug on, we got shooting cracks 10 to 20 feet from our skis and about 6 inches in depth. Besides the freshly drifted slabs, we didn't identify any other concerning layers in the upper snowpack. On southerly slopes there is a melt-freeze crust about 8 inches down from the surface. On due south-facing slopes, the crust is thick and strong with not much faceting surrounding it. The crust thins and becomes more faceted as you move around the compass from southeast to east. On some due east-facing slopes it is hard to find any buried crusts. These thin crusts surrounded by facets seem like they won't be able to handle a large load.---Overall snow depths were in the 2 meter range. South-facing slopes have about 175 cm of snow with much deeper depths on north through east. West-facing slopes were similar to south, although we did measure some snow depths in the 150 to 160 cm range.---We dug to the ground on one west-facing near treeline slope and found a relatively deep and strong snowpack. There are persistent weak layers buried in the pack around the November rain crust (55 cm from the ground) and towards the ground, but these faceted layers aren't overly weak. They are thin and strengthening. The slab above these weak layers is very strong and it would be hard (not impossible) to effect weak layers beneath. Very steep, rocky, westerly-facing terrain would be most suspect for triggering a larger avalanche on deeper layers.