Ball Butte and Broken Top

Written Report:
After a cold and not so windy night I did see a little Surface Hoar near and below tree line in isolated areas. The attached pic is from the base of Ball Butte's south aspect. Small, but it was there.

On a north east aspect of Ball Butte's southern bowl at around 7846' I dug a snow pit. The upper snowpack consisted of 30cm of 1F(finger) hardness DFs (decomposing fragments) over 10cm of Fist+ DFs. A compression test gave me CT17 RP (resistant planar) @ 30cm at this interface. I "burped" the rest of the column from the test and found no other instabilities. I ski cut the slope and saw no shooting cracks, whumphing, or signs of previous avalanches. The upper 30cm is a cohesive slab, and while unreactive to ski cutting at this time, all slabs should be approached with caution and investigated before skiing.

At the summit winds where light from west, there was minimal blowing snow and little or no cornice build up on the ridges. Air temp was -3c at 9:10am. Scattered clouds.

Over on Broken Top I skied the north east aspect next to the ramp area.
Here again I dug a pit and found 30cm of 1F hardness DFs well bonded to a melt freeze crust of about 1cm thickness. Below the crust I found a right side up snowpack. Again I ski cut the slope and saw no shooting cracks, whumphing, or signs of previous avalanches in this area.

I did note a small R1D1 point release under "Pucker Up", looked to be skier triggered.

Phil

Avalanche Report:
Small R1D1 point release under "Pucker Up", looked to be skier triggered.