Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackDan Edmiston ยท Apr 22, 2013
Weather
About 10cms of new snow at trailhead. Day started with spotty convective showers then cleared out from 10am to about noon. Second shortwave trough rolled through and promptly dropped about 3 inches of big meaty flakes and some graupel in about an hour. A few hold over showers rolled through after the main cell.
Snowpack
Found anywhere from 230-300+cm (300cm probe couldn't touch ground) of snow on the East side of Sand Mtn. Found 3 distinct dust layers, one 25cm down, one 35cms down, and another 65cms down. Got some reactivity on a CT on 25 degree slope. 23 hits knocked off the upper 25cm right at the uppermost dust layer. Seemed to be a resistant planar fracture. Another 4 hits on the same column knocked off the next 10cms down to the second dust layer, also RP fracture. No other reactivity on loading steps. Shovel shear on the remaining column failed at 120cms down on what looked like some type of crust but i couldn't really isolate it in the pit wall, however it was also an RP quality shear. Temps in the upper 140cms of pit were all within 1-2*C below zero.