March 25, 2004, Mazama Ridge, Rainier

My sister's in town and we decided to go play on Rainier rather than Crystal.  Boy was it a good decision and it's been a few weeks anyway.  Got a late start cause of equipment.  Drove thru the gate around 9:30 ish.  Report said 35 degrees and snowing with 5'' new.  Pulled into the upper parking lot and visibility towards Pan Pt. looked sketchy but not so bad towards Mazama Ridge so we parked near Paradise Valley road.  Temps felt like in the mid 20's and wind was light.  Snowplows have already plowed a good quarter mile of the road as I felt asphalt with my pole tips.  Anyways once we climbed onto the unplowed it got deeper.  With snowshoes we were sinking anywhere from 5'' to 12''.  I was able to sink my pole close to 2 feet.  There were high winds the night before and accumilation of snow over a few days.  Did notice how narrow the bridge has gotten since last time while we veered left towards Mazama Ridge.  The first snowshoe up is always the best ;) but it would get easier.  Winds on top of the ridge were moderate and from the north.  Well my sister and I had the whole ridge to ourselves and by ourselves.  Lots of wind blown pow everywhere with stashes up to 2 feet.  After our 3rd run I decided to dig a pit on top of the ridge half past noon.  Dug 4 feet down to the various crust layers.  Pit showed around 18'' of recently layered snow on top of previous crust.  There was few inches of dense on top of few inches of really light on top of dense to the crust.  It sheared near the crust level but not without effort.  Compression test showed failure only at the few inches of really light snow with 3 gentle taps from wrist.  Can be a problem if it keeps dumping the denser stuff.  We continued to take 3 more laps before making our way up the PV road.  The snow and wind never let up.  Our track coming down road was nearly filled from the days snow.  Tomorrow should be just as good if not better. ;D