Steamboat & Flat Tops

I was able to trigger very small and harmless wind slabs while skinning up the ridge to the summit by stepping on the cornice on the leeside of the ridge. This was the only area with a cohesive enough slab to produce avalanches.

Very cold day. Temps in the single digits and well into the negatives with wind chill. Prevailing west winds that grew from light to strong with elevation, and I observed light to moderate snow transport. I experienced some north winds as well at the saddle. Overcast skies. Snowed at a rate of about a centimeter or less an hour, with a total accumulation of 4-5cm by the end of my tour.

The height of snow on the north half of the compass averages around a meter, plus or minus 20cms. In sheltered areas, the new snow is unconsolidated. While weak snow (surface hoar or facets) rests beneath the new snow, without the new snow having slab-like properties, there is not a persistent slab problem. Also, in an extended column test on a northwest facing slope, I neither saw propagation nor fractures on any layers deeper in the snowpack. Nearing the saddle of Hahns Peak, this new snow had been consolidated by wind, but was still very thin and unreactive on the weak snow beneath. However, at ridgeline, wind-drifting had built slabs thick enough to propagate across distance and fail on this weak layer.