September 12, 2010, Muir Soupfield
9/12/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2143
2
Paradise: a day early, a webcam short. Actually, at least four webcams. What's the deal NPS, those have been down for over a month now?
The one remaining webcam pointing downvalley showed good weather, enough encouragement to go. And Paradise itself was partly sunny. However, fogged in above the Edith Creek crest. Arghh.
Took the longer 4th Creek to eastern Skyline approach, to enjoy what remained of sun, lesser crowds, and a still impressive array of flowers for almost halfway into September. One grazing bear, many grazing marmots.
Once past Pan Point soup was a zesty soup, fog with about 25mph average winds. Took an 'adventure' approach over the top of Sugarloaf and McClure Rock. But eventually the obvious reality that I didn't want anywhere near Paradise Glacier in total whiteout penetrated my thick skull, and traversed back towards Muir mainline in foot of new snow over sidehill. Vis no better than 200', mostly more like 25' Boot track obvious once I intersected it.
Even though not raining per se, plenty wet from mist piling into me. Not even sure where I turned around, surely was below Moon Rocks. Pleasantly surprised at quantity of new snow and how well is filling in the rocks around the permanent snow.
Snow felt pretty nice underfoot, if only I could see! Brailled the bootpack. Maybe not the best day out when you have to decide whether the better emotion is the thrill of the ski, or the relief of finally heading downhill out of the weather.
And of course, the mountain popped out of the clouds to taunt me, as viewed from Puyallup late in the evening.
Perhaps there will be a wave of Bluebird flu tomorrow?
The one remaining webcam pointing downvalley showed good weather, enough encouragement to go. And Paradise itself was partly sunny. However, fogged in above the Edith Creek crest. Arghh.
Took the longer 4th Creek to eastern Skyline approach, to enjoy what remained of sun, lesser crowds, and a still impressive array of flowers for almost halfway into September. One grazing bear, many grazing marmots.
Once past Pan Point soup was a zesty soup, fog with about 25mph average winds. Took an 'adventure' approach over the top of Sugarloaf and McClure Rock. But eventually the obvious reality that I didn't want anywhere near Paradise Glacier in total whiteout penetrated my thick skull, and traversed back towards Muir mainline in foot of new snow over sidehill. Vis no better than 200', mostly more like 25' Boot track obvious once I intersected it.
Even though not raining per se, plenty wet from mist piling into me. Not even sure where I turned around, surely was below Moon Rocks. Pleasantly surprised at quantity of new snow and how well is filling in the rocks around the permanent snow.
Snow felt pretty nice underfoot, if only I could see! Brailled the bootpack. Maybe not the best day out when you have to decide whether the better emotion is the thrill of the ski, or the relief of finally heading downhill out of the weather.
And of course, the mountain popped out of the clouds to taunt me, as viewed from Puyallup late in the evening.
Perhaps there will be a wave of Bluebird flu tomorrow?
"NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
Fun read. Thanks for the report, and good call on the 13th bluebird conditions... Silas' report verifies your prediction.
Fun read. Thanks for the report, and good call on the 13th bluebird conditions... Silas' report verifies your prediction.
author=wolfs link=topic=17426.msg73470#msg73470 date=1284439120">
Paradise: a day early, a webcam short. Actually, at least four webcams. What's the deal NPS, those have been down for over a month now?
The one remaining webcam pointing downvalley showed good weather, . . .
The Paradise webcams have been back online for 2+ weeks . . . but at new URLs. Apparently, the NPS switched over much of its website to new servers in mid-August, so the 5 Paradise webcams hosted on mms.nps.gov went down on August 15, while the air quality webcam (on another server) stayed online.
My own Mount Rainier Paradise WebCams page shows all 6 webcams at your choice of 3 different sizes and optionally with telemetry data too, or you can find them linked from the MRNP home page http://www.nps.gov/mora/.
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