Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackGrant Breidenbach · Feb 10, 2023 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Perfect bluebird day. Started below 0 with rapid warming and temps close to freezing by noon.
Snowpack
Most places my 260cm probe could not hit bottom but pit depth was 280cm. Wind slab: Observed the wind pillows below small cornices on E aspects as forecasted. Wet Loose: On S and SW aspects warming released small wet loose slides in steep rocky terrain. Pit: Dug a pit on a NEN aspect at 9,600ft near the ridgeline where there appeared to possibly be some wind loading. See chart for details. The new snow from 2/8 did not seem to be particularly well bonded to the old snow, failing 15cm down at Easy with a Shovel Tap Test and CTM1 in a Compression Test. Was a poor quality (Q3) break with the fracture plane over a centimeter thick. Appeared to be failing on large spatial dendrites. Also got one other low quality failure 50cm down at CTH5. Did not excavate beyond ~1 meter down.