Steamboat & Flat Tops

Snowpack

Cody M Perry · Dec 18, 2012 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

Weather

It was clear that North Routt saw some significant winds over the last 24hrs. Precip continued throughout the day today reaching an inch an hour max(S-2). Winds were light hopefully filling in some slopes. Air temp was -7 celcius and overcast cloud cover.

Snowpack

This storm cycle has created a small bridge forming over the weak faceted base. The problem is that this bridge is easily broken and only 40 to 50cm thick. Consistent failures are happening at the facet-storm snow interface. CT-11 & CT-12 Q2(SC) x3. ECT-11/12 Q2(SC)x2. We're seeing remarkable slab potential. Our test site was a good distance away from wind effected areas. All Failures are happening down at these ground level facets. Tests preformed at 9000ft, N-NE aspect, 34degree slope angel. The snowpack composition is basically divided into quarters. Top 40cm is unconsolidated dendrites and decomposing grains, very small, .5cm. two progressively denser layers (4F to 1F) sit on top of the facets (10-15cm each respectively). These two layers looked to have some amount rounding present (grain size .5mm). The cereal like facets are nested below (2 to 3mm in size and 10-15cm in depth) some cupping. There are two big temp gradient jumps in the pack. From the surface(-2C) to 20cm below(-6C), 4 degrees!!! & from pack depth of 30cm(-4C) down to 20cm(-1.5C). Winds have clearly been at work up north. Very brittle, sensitive pockets were just itching to crack when we came close. Not as much whomping as I'd expect but some cracks would run across 100ft. slopes on our tour. I do not suggest casual postures around slopes that look good to ski on.