Steamboat & Flat Tops

Snowpack

Dan Edmiston · Apr 26, 2013 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

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Weather

Clear skies, skin out was well supported on frozen crust. Quick thaw on solar slopes. NW slopes were slightly crusty during our exit at 1300.

Snowpack

Pits showed some medium results on CT about 20-35cms down on a decomposing melt-freeze crust, below the dirt layer that was laid down a few weeks prior. Fractures were mostly resistant planar but with such a warm, wet snowpack they were hard to remove. Hard ski cuts on small convexities failed to show any reactivity beyond some surface slush. Still a pretty sizable (20cms thick) mid-pack rounding facet (3-5mm) layer but did not see any failures within or around that layer. Base of snowpack on scree slope was fist hard rounding facets from 0-30cms but we couldn't get any movement in that layer either. Pleasant spring ski at 8500ft on NE, E, and N facing slopes.