October 28, 2009, Paradise Mt. Rainier
10/28/09
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
7030
12
About 30 streaking skiers converged at Paradise this morning for a major unplanned networking event, without boom boxes and bbqs. Retirees, self employed, unemployed, trustafarians, and students had bonding conversations on the windless skin up directly from the parking lot. Most enjoyed the calm, dustless, and odorless lunch stop at Camp Muir, summer stink is over.
A few chose to ski out the Paradise Glacier and found it not ready yet. Those who followed the up route down found 4-6" of slightly wind affected powder on a smooth base to 8200',then perfect powder to Pebble Creek. Below that some chose to boot, occasionally sinking calf deep, but most skied right to the parking lot with only a few base scrapes and short ski portages.
By 4pm the weather was closing in for the next high freezing level precipitation.
A few chose to ski out the Paradise Glacier and found it not ready yet. Those who followed the up route down found 4-6" of slightly wind affected powder on a smooth base to 8200',then perfect powder to Pebble Creek. Below that some chose to boot, occasionally sinking calf deep, but most skied right to the parking lot with only a few base scrapes and short ski portages.
By 4pm the weather was closing in for the next high freezing level precipitation.
author=silaswild link=topic=14308.msg59857#msg59857 date=1256777800]
to 8200',then perfect powder to Pebble Creek. Below that some chose to boot, occasionally sinking calf deep, but most skied right to the parking lot with only a few base scrapes and short ski portages.
Silas, Holly & I carpooled down and had a great day in the mountains, even if I did leave my ski poles at home. Great company up there and back again. And thirty five hundred vertical without poles was good practice!
I chose to stay and do laps in that perfect zone between 8000 and Pebble - it was fantastic!
I met Jason, Hannah, Crustos, Jimjar, Gorp, Amar, Kyle and a bunch of others.
How often does Muir give you perfect silky powder, no wind, and a car to car ski in October. 36 months para mi! WhooHOO!
It was good to meet a bunch of you up there! Lot's of nice turns and not too many rocks for October.
Here's a few pics, there's a shot of Gorp and a few action shots of Holly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/petey5287/Winter0902?feat=directlink
Here's a few pics, there's a shot of Gorp and a few action shots of Holly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/petey5287/Winter0902?feat=directlink
So many nice turns for October! What fun. It's been a year and a half since I skied snow that light and fluffy...
I bounced around the rest of the night like a ping pong ball try to refocus coming off that high... :)
Good to see so many friends old and new. I have a just a few pictures, but not so good as I dropped my camera in the snow making everything blurred or whiteout, arrgh! (Thank goodness the camera recovered though...)
Looking forward to more, hope to see y'all soon. :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/teleskichica/MuirOctober282009?feat=directlink
I bounced around the rest of the night like a ping pong ball try to refocus coming off that high... :)
Good to see so many friends old and new. I have a just a few pictures, but not so good as I dropped my camera in the snow making everything blurred or whiteout, arrgh! (Thank goodness the camera recovered though...)
Looking forward to more, hope to see y'all soon. :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/teleskichica/MuirOctober282009?feat=directlink
It was a great day to be on Tahoma, and fun to see all of you... We were the quiet party of 3 moving kinda slow on the uphill. This was really the first good exercise I've had in a month of cleansing, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Our cleanse diet (vegan, no grains, no nuts) may not be very complimentary to ski touring, as some of us "hit the wall" a couple times, but I actually felt great moving at a moderate pace, and would have continued to camp Muir if the weather wasn't changing.
Definitely smoked salmon and nuts next time. I'm also starting to make my own goo with almond butter, agave nectar, raw cacao, maca, and cayenne. I love bacon cheeseburgers, but I've really felt much better physically (and lost ALL extra body fat) in a month without them.
We met a big black fox on our way up about 1 mile below the parking lot. He didn't run away, instead completely circling our truck before sitting down and yawning in front of us. It was a treat to see this local character in the contrast of the new snow.
As for the skiing: Sweet! It was great skinning all they way from the car, thanks to the skintrack that only crossed a few sharp rocks and a couple bushes. The descent was very super fun too, with perfect windblown powder up high, and an adventure course through the rocks below Pebble Creek. We walked about 20 yards twice through the steepest, rockiest sections, then continued down through the meadows and all the way back to the parking lot.
Snowpack: The snow was pretty ideal for October. It had snowed about 11" at Paradise on Monday with temps dropping from 44F to 25F during the storm, and Westerly winds approx. 15-40mph. This settled well on Tuesday, leaving a dense base under a few inches of light dry powder with no noticeable layering in the storm snow. However, below the new snow there was a low density layer of sugary Melt Forms, mostly around rocks and bushes. Ski penetration was about 1"-2" and foot penetration about 12-16" on the Muir snowfield.
The wind deposits on the leeward (E) sides of ridges had formed small cornices in some locations, and provided great pockets of powder allowing us to avoid rocky zones and make turns even down low. I did notice some soft slab characteristics in these spots, but nothing dangerous. The rising freezing levels and precip should changer things considerably.
BTW, the guy with dreadlocks isn't a Trustafarian, if that's who you're referring to. He's the one of us who still has a full-time job, and was getting vacation pay yesterday!
I look forward to meeting more of you out there next time...
-nOrm
Definitely smoked salmon and nuts next time. I'm also starting to make my own goo with almond butter, agave nectar, raw cacao, maca, and cayenne. I love bacon cheeseburgers, but I've really felt much better physically (and lost ALL extra body fat) in a month without them.
We met a big black fox on our way up about 1 mile below the parking lot. He didn't run away, instead completely circling our truck before sitting down and yawning in front of us. It was a treat to see this local character in the contrast of the new snow.
As for the skiing: Sweet! It was great skinning all they way from the car, thanks to the skintrack that only crossed a few sharp rocks and a couple bushes. The descent was very super fun too, with perfect windblown powder up high, and an adventure course through the rocks below Pebble Creek. We walked about 20 yards twice through the steepest, rockiest sections, then continued down through the meadows and all the way back to the parking lot.
Snowpack: The snow was pretty ideal for October. It had snowed about 11" at Paradise on Monday with temps dropping from 44F to 25F during the storm, and Westerly winds approx. 15-40mph. This settled well on Tuesday, leaving a dense base under a few inches of light dry powder with no noticeable layering in the storm snow. However, below the new snow there was a low density layer of sugary Melt Forms, mostly around rocks and bushes. Ski penetration was about 1"-2" and foot penetration about 12-16" on the Muir snowfield.
The wind deposits on the leeward (E) sides of ridges had formed small cornices in some locations, and provided great pockets of powder allowing us to avoid rocky zones and make turns even down low. I did notice some soft slab characteristics in these spots, but nothing dangerous. The rising freezing levels and precip should changer things considerably.
BTW, the guy with dreadlocks isn't a Trustafarian, if that's who you're referring to. He's the one of us who still has a full-time job, and was getting vacation pay yesterday!
I look forward to meeting more of you out there next time...
-nOrm
author=Col link=topic=14308.msg59887#msg59887 date=1256844189]
BTW, the guy with dreadlocks isn't a Trustafarian, if that's who you're referring to.
He would be a rastafarian in my language.
Great to see everyone out enjoying the early season snow. Good skiing for October and great cloud watching through out the day with a combination of low and high clouds. I was in the Paradise Glacier group through a serendipitous meeting on the way up. Snow was wind affected up high that turned into nice powder as we dropped elevation. Unfortunately we were stopped by a larger crevasse lower down and after traversing half the glacier looking for a bridge eventually decided the risk/reward ratio was too high so we back tracked to the up route.
author=silaswild link=topic=14308.msg59888#msg59888 date=1256844771]
He would be a rastafarian in my language.
No worries!
In other language, a "Rastafarian" practices a monotheistic religious movement that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former, and final, Emperor of Ethiopia, as the incarnation of God, called Jah or Jah Rastafari. They tend to be pretty hard-lined and not accepting of women's equality, or white people in general.
A Trustafarian is a somewhat derogatory name for white kids who have dreadlocks and trust funds instead of jobs.
A Sadhu, on the other hand, is an enlightened dude with dreadlocks from the Himalaya who smokes charas (Hash) all day and contemplates his connection to the universe :)
Lots of people interpret dreads in many ways, and make judgements (They are Cool! or They are sooo dirty!) before getting to know a person, which is really where the juice is... and there are all kinds of people: cool; dirty; friendly; professional; or tweakers, etc. with dreads.
Climbing down from the soapbox now...
Hair is like clothing that takes a while longer to put on.
It was a fun day to be out. Nice meeting all of you!
Holly skiing down the Muir Snowfields
Our moment of sun
Happy face
Holly skiing down the Muir Snowfields
Our moment of sun
Happy face
you guys all ... dang it
Wednesday was an awesome day…inially jealous of a Tuesday post I'm thrilled the way Wednesday actually turned out!
I was the lone skier lugging alpine gear up the mountain later in the afternoon. At least 15 skiers passed me heading down as I was on my way up. The clouds were interesting throughout the afternoon as we were basically in between layers of cloulds, I could see the brightness at times above on the snowfield that the earlier skiers were enjoying before I got there. Nonetheless I made it up to Pebble Creek before the clouds moved in on me too much, although a difficult hike in that area as I postholed just about every other step…sometimes sinking above my knees! Various skiers I chatted with let me know it wasn't worth going much higher than 8000-feet or so…which was great advice considering my time of day and weather moving in.
It was probably close to 4:30pm when I hit my high point somewhere between 8000' and 8500' on Muir. Once I got above Pebble Creek it was easy hiking again on the snowfield and as quiet as I've ever experienced up there! Fresh snow, no wind, clouds seemed to be still, and all other skiers had now descended below the Pebble Creek…knowing I was the last man on the mountain that day I enjoyed a few minutes of solitude before my descent. Although my visibility on the snowfield was OK (obviously white on white) I knew the cloud I would ski in below the snowfield would get interesting. I enjoyed my turns on the snowfield and had a ball weaving through the rocks near Pebble Creek -- wishing I had the time to make another lap -- and then carefully descended below the Panorama Point area into a complete abyss of clouds with ZERO visibility. Made for a challenging ski through Paradise (definitely good early season prep for Whistler) but finally made it to the parking lot while the last group before me was still gearing down. I took the skis off a few times to avoid rocky sections (when I could see them) but otherwise enjoyed a pretty constant descent on skis. Skiing to the parking lot was one hell of a treat!!!
Cheers to all the others who made it on Tuesday and Wednesday…especially those who got a glimpse of sun! You can see I wasn't as lucky with visibility by my last two photos below, but still worth it! Great effort to those who made it up there yesterday as well…skiing on wet snow is still better than no snow! :)
Happy October everyone!
I was the lone skier lugging alpine gear up the mountain later in the afternoon. At least 15 skiers passed me heading down as I was on my way up. The clouds were interesting throughout the afternoon as we were basically in between layers of cloulds, I could see the brightness at times above on the snowfield that the earlier skiers were enjoying before I got there. Nonetheless I made it up to Pebble Creek before the clouds moved in on me too much, although a difficult hike in that area as I postholed just about every other step…sometimes sinking above my knees! Various skiers I chatted with let me know it wasn't worth going much higher than 8000-feet or so…which was great advice considering my time of day and weather moving in.
It was probably close to 4:30pm when I hit my high point somewhere between 8000' and 8500' on Muir. Once I got above Pebble Creek it was easy hiking again on the snowfield and as quiet as I've ever experienced up there! Fresh snow, no wind, clouds seemed to be still, and all other skiers had now descended below the Pebble Creek…knowing I was the last man on the mountain that day I enjoyed a few minutes of solitude before my descent. Although my visibility on the snowfield was OK (obviously white on white) I knew the cloud I would ski in below the snowfield would get interesting. I enjoyed my turns on the snowfield and had a ball weaving through the rocks near Pebble Creek -- wishing I had the time to make another lap -- and then carefully descended below the Panorama Point area into a complete abyss of clouds with ZERO visibility. Made for a challenging ski through Paradise (definitely good early season prep for Whistler) but finally made it to the parking lot while the last group before me was still gearing down. I took the skis off a few times to avoid rocky sections (when I could see them) but otherwise enjoyed a pretty constant descent on skis. Skiing to the parking lot was one hell of a treat!!!
Cheers to all the others who made it on Tuesday and Wednesday…especially those who got a glimpse of sun! You can see I wasn't as lucky with visibility by my last two photos below, but still worth it! Great effort to those who made it up there yesterday as well…skiing on wet snow is still better than no snow! :)
Happy October everyone!
Hey Denny,
I talked to you on your way up, just cresting Pan. Glad to hear you had a good time. I'm envious of your solitude time - it was a busy day on the snow field earlier.
The two people I felt sorry for were the two women I passed on the way down. They had skinned up to Pan, then turned around and postholed their way down, carrying their gear. All the work and none of the fun - a zero on the ol' Joy-O-Meter. For one of them it was her first back country earn your turns kind of trip. If you're that woman reading this, Hang in there, it definitely gets way WAY better. And good job climbing up - the exercise is a rewarding part of the whole enchilada.
I talked to you on your way up, just cresting Pan. Glad to hear you had a good time. I'm envious of your solitude time - it was a busy day on the snow field earlier.
The two people I felt sorry for were the two women I passed on the way down. They had skinned up to Pan, then turned around and postholed their way down, carrying their gear. All the work and none of the fun - a zero on the ol' Joy-O-Meter. For one of them it was her first back country earn your turns kind of trip. If you're that woman reading this, Hang in there, it definitely gets way WAY better. And good job climbing up - the exercise is a rewarding part of the whole enchilada.
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