Febril 28, 2010, Paradise
2/15/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3613
2
The day was dominated by sunshine and soft heavy snow. I skied from Muir just after 12 and was able to stay atop rapidly-softening supportable crust until about halfway down the snowfield. Skipped making extra laps due to the possibility of injury in the cheese-whiz. Set up a raincoat cabana at Glacier Vista and watched the mountain sluff snow. Skiing the refreezing snow in the afternoon was a little better.
Snow was 1'+ of soft heavy powder with a sun/rain/warming crust on top all atop various hard crusty layers. Lots of natural wet slide activity on all aspects on Rainier, some with wet slab fracture propagation, all running on layers in the new-ish snow. Didn't see much on the N side of the Tatoosh, but I didn't look real hard. Easy shears at 2" and ~1' down. I suspect those have already started to change.
Photo below is of Amar and Ned halfway down the Chute (dots with skis in lower left). Note crowns from the morning's slide activity.
Snow was 1'+ of soft heavy powder with a sun/rain/warming crust on top all atop various hard crusty layers. Lots of natural wet slide activity on all aspects on Rainier, some with wet slab fracture propagation, all running on layers in the new-ish snow. Didn't see much on the N side of the Tatoosh, but I didn't look real hard. Easy shears at 2" and ~1' down. I suspect those have already started to change.
Photo below is of Amar and Ned halfway down the Chute (dots with skis in lower left). Note crowns from the morning's slide activity.
Nasty manky stuff indeed. Watched Amar and Ned shoot the chute. Pretty lines. Got nervous seeing them so close to the earlier crown face. That was the only slab evidence I witnessed today, everything else seemed to be wet snow avalanches.
Thanks for the photo of our tracks, Charlie. It's funny how different my tracks and Ned's look!
The avy debris in the Chute looked scary, but the snow in the Chute was heavy powder and very stable during our run, nothing moved except a few pinwheels and rollers. The snow was even better on the Nisqually Glacier, no nasty mank at all. A great day, and I finally got around to writing a TR:
Feb 28, 2010, Mt Rainier, Muir, Cowlitz, Nisqually
The avy debris in the Chute looked scary, but the snow in the Chute was heavy powder and very stable during our run, nothing moved except a few pinwheels and rollers. The snow was even better on the Nisqually Glacier, no nasty mank at all. A great day, and I finally got around to writing a TR:
Feb 28, 2010, Mt Rainier, Muir, Cowlitz, Nisqually
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