November 16, 2003, Mazama Ridge, Mt. Rainier

Eight of us gathered at the Tall Timbers in Eatonville for a hearty breakfast in preparation for what we expected to be a vigorous weather day in "paradise". At the entrance to MRNP, we were greeted with the news that, "there is not enough snow to ski around Paradise, you should go to the Muir snowfield if you want to ski". Hmmm... our choices seemed to be: (1) go up to the Muir and most likely get lost, frozen, and/or blown away, (2) turn around and go back home, or (3) go ahead and ski around Paradise, forever living with the guilt of damaging the vegetation. We chose the latter.

The Longmire gate opened at 9, and the drive up gave us a preview of what was to come: snow falling and on the road below the Nisqually bridge, and three cars spun out just above Ricksecker Point (two in the ditch). We were joined in the parking lot by 7 more skiers from the Tacoma Mountaineers who had abandoned their planned Grand Park XC trip due to likely access problems. As we started down the Paradise Valley loop road, there seemed to be about 8" of new above a strong crust, with moderate wind and continuing snowfall. We skinned up to Mazama Ridge from the road along the route of the 4th Crossing trail, and the coverage looked like it would be good enough to let us ski back down to the road. Up on Mazama Ridge, we headed to the Back Bowl; the wind was strong and visibility not great, but the coverage was good enough so we did a run. Great snow! Temperature about 25 F, about 12" of loose on top of the crust, no real rock problems. Back up to the top for another run, this one easier because we now had the tracks to provide some visual guidance. Back to the top again for another run, and now the wind was really blowing hard, quickly filling in tracks with new and drifting snow. After the third run, everyone agreed that we'd had enough Back Bowl action, so back to the top for the ski down to the road. Now the wind was really howling, with gusts stripping snow from the trees and reducing visibility to zero. The ski down the west side of Mazama was quite good, with the little gullies holding enough snow to be very skiable, and reasonable paths through the vegetation below that to the road.

Rounding the corner of the loop road only a couple hundred yards from the parking lot we encountered the most intense winds of the day, blasts so strong that we just had to stop and fight being blown over. It looked like there had probably been 4-6" of new snow during the day. All in all, a great day of skiing in new snow, and a vigorous reintroduction to winter.

It was a difficult day for photography, but there will be some photos from this trip on TAY homepage next Monday (11/24). In the meantime, here's a shot from the Back Bowl, with UFOs: