Steamboat & Flat Tops

Broken skies and temperatures in the upper-twenties to start the morning. Nearing 11am skies quickly turned overcast, precipitation started in the form of graupel, and the temperature dropped slightly. Graupel snow was fairly consistent throughout the day but there was little accumulation. I experienced strong winds seemingly from all directions and could not identify a predominant pattern.

There was about 3-4cm of new snow, but with the strong winds, some areas were stripped bare to the old surface, and few isolated spots had close to 15cm of new-drifted snow. This new snow was wind-packed and cohesive, and I experienced minor cracks all around my skis while traveling. The old surface on east and southeast aspects is a thin crust, that is supportable to ski travel but easily penetrable with a ski pole or boot. East aspects hold multiple crust layers (see snowpit profile) with some weaker faceted snow beneath. With a large enough load, an avalanche could fail within the faceted snow beneath the crust. On a northeast wind-loaded aspect, I saw propagation in an extended column test within the wind-drifted storm snow, though this occurred only 11cm from the surface, so not a thick enough slab to be problematic. On this slope, the old surface, buried just 15cm, was a very thin layer of faceted snow. I’m uncertain how widespread this layer can be found, but an avalanche that fails within the storm snow could easily step down to this faceted layer.