Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackMax Strotbeck · Dec 11, 2025 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Scattered skies with temperatures near and above freezing. Light southwest and west winds with occasional moderate gusts. No new snow.
Snowpack
On northeast through east through south aspects observed, we found the height of snow to range from 35-65cm. A widespread 0.5-1cm crust was on the surface, which was breaking down but still present when we skied back to our car in the early afternoon. We found isolated areas with small surface hoar growth on the surface (on a northeast aspect near a creek and on a fairly sheltered east aspect just below ridgeline). The upper 10cm of the snowpack was moist, enough so to make a snowball. The mid pack was dry. On most east and south aspects observed, snow at the ground had previously become moist and had rounded. In the snowpit we dug on a northeast aspect, the basal layer was more faceted but rounded enough and not weak enough to be of concern. In the handful of snowpits we dug today, they were all fairly uniform in hardness, apart from the pencil hard surface crust, and while some did exhibit softer snow near the ground, the difference was not pronounced like you would see with a very weak layer of basal facets.