Steamboat & Flat Tops

Light southwest winds with temperatures in the low-to-mid twenties. Overcast skies and snowing at an average rate of 1 to 2 centimeters an hour for the duration of my tour.

The height of snow varied from about 30-35cm on southerly aspects to 55-75cm on northerly aspects in sheltered terrain. The new snow accounted for a third or more of the total height of snow on south facing slopes. However, these south facing slopes were quite supportable to travel as the old surface crust was stout and thick, up to 5cm on steeper south aspects. Had there been more snow, I would have been concerned about avalanches running on this surface, though not breaking deeper into the snowpack. On northerly aspects, the old surface rain crust that developed over Christmas was thinner and breakable. Another 5-10cm below this was the rain crust turned ice lens from earlier in December. In a snowpit on a northeast slope, I did not see much evidence of large faceted grains around these crusts, but I did see non-propagating ECT results immediately beneath each crust. I also found that the middle and lower snowpack was moist. On a previously wind-loaded NNE facing slope near the summit, a snowpit showed over a meter of snow, the bulk of it a 1-finger hard slab resting over still-dry basal facets. I saw propagation with hard taps in an extended column test at the slab/basal layer interface.