Steamboat & Flat Tops
AvalancheMax Strotbeck · Dec 6, 2023 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
There was a low lying fog this morning that dissipated by the afternoon, and we had mostly clear skies. The temperature was a bit above freezing and we had no new snow. Winds were calm to light out of the southwest.
Snowpack
We toured on northeast through east through south facing slopes between 8700-9700 feet. Snow depth ranged from 50-70cm. The snowpack was quite supportive, with our skis only sinking 10cm into the snow as we traveled, and less so in wind effected areas. We experienced localized collapsing on lower angled northeast and east facing terrain apart from one larger whumpf heard toward the end of our tour. In sparsely treed areas or open meadows sheltered from the wind, we observed surface hoar up to 10mm on all aspects we traveled on. The morning's low lying fog may have contributed to its growth. On steeper east facing slopes, there was a thin crust on the surface just below the surface hoar. Throughout the day we dug 4 to 5 pits on northeast and east facing terrain. On northeast facing terrain, our ECT failed during isolation at the interface of the early season faceted snow and more recent storm snow (ECTPV @ 17cm). On east facing terrain, our ECTs also failed at this interface, but this time, propagating failures occurred on moderate taps in three separate pits. The recent storm snow is becoming firmer, generally 1 finger hard on the hand harness scale. On steeper, east facing terrain, there is less faceted snow near the ground as the sun melted much of that snow prior to our most recent storm cycle.
Avalanche
We did not observe any avalanches while in the field today.