Steamboat & Flat Tops

Avalanche

Max Strotbeck · Feb 14, 2025 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

Weather

Skies were overcast, and obscured the higher I traveled. Prior to noon, snowfall was intermittent and S-1/S1 when snowing, and by 1pm it was snowing consistently at a rate of S2. Temperatures were near freezing and winds were light from the west.

Snowpack

I found the height of storm snow to be 11-12cm (4+ inches). This snow was four-finger hard on the hand-hardness scale, while the snow beneath was fist hard. At about 25-30cm down, I found the early February warm-up/dry spell layer, where the snow again increased in hardness. In more open areas where the new snow was slightly stiffened by wind, it was supportable to skis, but in more forested areas I sank through this new snow into the softer snow, making for more arduous skinning. In snowpits both in shallow/mostly faceted areas and deeper areas more representative of the terrain, I did not see propagation in extended column tests at the new/old interface or deeper in the snowpack. In one snowpit dug on a previously wind-loaded north-facing convex roll, I saw propagation in an extended column test with moderate taps about 40cm from the surface where a mostly 1-finger to pencil hard slab rested atop four-finger to fist hard snow. This was an isolated terrain feature, and was not consistent with the snowpack I observed the majority of the day.

Avalanche

I neither saw avalanches while driving up CR129 nor on Hahns Peak, though while on the ridgeline near the summit of Hahns Peak the sky was so obscured I couldn't even see into the East Bowl.