Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Feb 17, 2024 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Clear skies, not much wind, warm in the sun, cool in the shade. HST= 45 cm (18 in)
Snowpack
We didn't dig much on southerly aspects because it was obviously reactive. it was easy to trigger avalanches on steep unsupported terrain features. The storm snow of 45 cm was right side up resting on a thin layer of facets above a melt freeze crust. Facets under this thin, less than 1 cm thick, crust were weaker, but we did not observe avalanches breaking below the crust. I don't expect avalanches to step down or break deeper in the snowpack on these southerly slopes. On northerly slopes, we got consistent ECTN results 10 to 15 cm from the surface within the storm snow from the last three days. We also got consistent propagating results 30 cm down on a layer of rimed precip particles and graupel. We got no results on a layer of surface hoar and facets buried 80 cm from the surface. The surface hoar layer has thinned and is not reactive at this time, and from what we saw, in the future. This lines up with observations from operations tracking this layer around Buff Pass.