Van Patten Butte

The bid suprise for me today was the lack of wind at upper elevations. I climbed up to 8200' and did not observe any wind transport or recent signs of wind loading. This contrasts with the forecasted wind speeds and what the anemometer at the top of ALMR was reporting for wind speeds last night.

While there was plenty of old signs of wet loose activity on steep rocky southern exposures, I did not see any wet loose in action during my tour. South aspects were taking heat and the upper 4" of the snowpack was moist on sunny slopes, but it seems the unstable snow shed mostly Wednesday and Thursday when the sun initially came out with force.

One thing to take note of...there is widespread surface hoar development (6-9mm in size) on a variety of aspects protected from the wind up to 8000'. I observed widespread surface hoar development yesterday on Wing Ridge too, up to 8000'. We've had several days of relatively clear, calm, and cold nights, which is fabulous weather for surface hoar formation. This will likely be a reactive layer when it gets buried by the new snowfall coming in Sunday into Monday. Another potential reactive layer will be the stout melt-freeze crusts on southerly aspects. Any new snow will not bond well to the slick crusts and we'll see wet loose avalanche activity on steep sun-exposed slopes - if and when - snow totals creep above a few inches or more.

On SE aspect at 8200' the top 4" of snowpack was moist. Below this moist snow was a 1" melt-freeze crust from 3/13. Underneath this crust sat about 2" of partially decomposing precipitation particles at 4F density. Below this layer the snowpack was more or less homogenous going from 1F to P with depth. Many of the natural wet loose avalanches appear to have released on the top 4" sliding on the melt-freeze crust.