Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackAnonymous · Feb 16, 2013 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Some new snow Fri 2/15 (about 12"), skied on Sat 2/15. Clear and warming throughout the day.
Snowpack
On N - NNE facing slope, 30 deg, about 9,500', HS 185cm... hasty pit revealed some very troubling buried surface hoar layers, one about 45 cm from top. The layer was quite prominent and SH crystals were visible without the use of a loupe. Compression and ETC results did not scream instability (CT18 Q2 on one test), but a shovel shear I did just to isolate a column produced a nice Q1 shear on the SH layer, so snowpack structure is an issue at this time. Sorry, not a terribly detailed report but thought I'd let you know about the SH growth we got in between storms. While digging our pit I kept thinking how stable it seemed... until I cleaned the pit wall and could see the SH layer. Depth hoar still exists in the lower 40 cm of the pack but was too deep to react to stability tests.