Steamboat & Flat Tops

Snowpack

Cody Perry · Feb 28, 2012 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

Weather

Sky's were overcast with strong winds out of the west (large trees in motion and some south facing slopes we saw having significant snow removal). Air temp was -4c and stayed constant during our tour. Snowing @ s-5.

Snowpack

127cm profile. Top quarter of the snow pack was a mix of grain types. Wind broken particles, rimed flakes, decomposing fragments etc. Average of 2mm. Below that (between 93cm and 45cm) we see rounded facets that are more on the facet side (1/1.5mm). This is a strong bridge in a weak sandwich. Below 45cm to the ground are large depth hoar crystals(3/4mm). that fall apart like a tittering jenga stack. We have surface instability and deep slab instability= weak sandwich. The bridge layer in this profile (between 93cm & 45cm) shows a pretty constant temp gradient from -7c@40cm. & -6c @ 90cm. Above and below these depths it heads toward -1c and 0c quickly. My climbing buddy and I were getting hammered by snow blown off of trees and on us so we called our test battery short. No repeated attempts were made at tests. Here's our results. CT-12Q3(SC)@107cm. & CT-21Q1(RP)@76cm- We did have a hardness change @ this depth. 1F above and below this small layer and wasn't able to learn more about this weak layer.