Steamboat & Flat Tops
Snowpackjohn moprrone · Dec 3, 2011 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
overcast, light snow flurries, 15F, light variable winds
Snowpack
75 cm snowpack. 0-15 cm loose granular 15-60cm finger-pencil hard 60cm hard 1 cm crust (pre-thanksgiving melt curst?) 61-75 soft new storm snow. easy shear and comprssion relaeas of new snow (cohesive) over icy crust. easy shear, but hard compression (first full arm hit) failure of hard layer over basal depth hoar. Low angle slope (15 degrees) suggests that hard layer would have compression failed much easier on steep slope. new snow layer is variably from 0 to 50cm thick- likly mostly wind moved snow from the thursday wind event. Where deep, it is heavy, but does NOT act as a hard slab. Where absecnt, the ice crust is hard, edge scrapy stuff, supportive, and not commonly breakale when skiied.