Steamboat & Flat Tops

Avalanche

CMC AIARE Lvl 1 · Jan 21, 2017 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Day started with mostly overcast skies with some light snow showers passing through. Day ended with obscured skies and snow ~1cm/hr as bulk of storm moved into the area. Temps hit 31*F just prior to storm arrival and dropped to mid-20s shortly thereafter.

Snowpack

150-165cm in meadows and on protected slopes in the 9400-9600 range. Pits dug on SE slope had a 2cm melt-freeze crust down 10cms from surface due to 2-3 sunny days earlier this week. No other major crusts or facets layers seen on SE face. No failures on shovel tilt, CTs or RB tests. Shovel shear broke at bottom of saw cuts on the SE slopes. Pits dug on East facing slopes had a buried surface hoar layer down 10-15cms that collapsed during easy loading steps on the CT with resistant planar fracture character. Layer did not propagate fully during ECT...... East facing CT results were CTVx2 down 10cm on BSH and sudden collapse not RP. CTHx2 SC down 25cm on NSF layer. ECTN 22 down 25cm on NSF

Avalanche

Only older wet loose slides from early in the week