Central Cascades

Avalanches remain unlikely on Wednesday.   Even in low danger avalanches may occurr on isolated slopes.  A great example of this seems to be an observed avalanche from Tuesday on Ball Butte.  This is a reminder to always resort to safe travel techniques like traveling through avalanche terrain one at a time, even when avalanches are unlikely.

A D1-1.5 skier triggered avalanche was observed on a 40 degree SouthEast slope at Ball Butte.  This avalanche seems to have occurred in a wind loaded pocket but was reported to have slid on a crust-facet-crust sandwhich at the 1/14 rain crust (typically 25-40 cm down).  We haven't see any other activity on this layer during the last few days, and throughout much of the terrain this layer is a simple unreactive rain crust.  Sensitive probing might give some clues as to whether or not this "crust sandwhich" exists in the terrain you're traveling, and this is also a good place to put your compression test to use.