Steamboat & Flat Tops

Avalanche

CMC AIARE Lvl 1 · Feb 19, 2022 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

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Weather

Pleasant start to the morning with comfortable temps and minimal wind. By 1pm the west-southwest winds started gusting into moderate range and moving the new snow around. Despite clear skies and relatively warm temps, we were bundled in several layers due to the winds.

Snowpack

Observed mostly south and southeast aspects with about 2" of new snow getting blown around with afternoon winds. Snow heights varied from ~50cms to 115cms in sheltered areas. Nearly the entire snowpack is faceted grains with the basal facets being fist hard with 4-finger hard facet layers above. Several stout ice crusts mixed through out. Shallow 50-60cm snowpack was fairly reactive and CTs showed repeated medium and hard failures at the ground (CTMx5, CTHx2). Had varied results on ECT with one ECTP17 also at the ground. Slightly deeper (90-115cm) snowpack on SE aspects didn't show any reactivity to speak of.

Avalanche

A few small point releases on northerly facing slopes below treeline. Happened during the day with increased wind loading. Small, but indicative of poor snowpack structure on northerly slopes with even a minor amount of loading.