2 paradise trips in one week!
11/15/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2267
2
enjoyed winter on thursday and spring-ish conditions sunday. hung out in the alta vista area and slopes above the viewing area all day with 11 of my closest friends. not exactly a TR of a tour- but figured i'd post in case some folks may just be curious about the snowpack and levels low enough for the 'casual outing' from the lot at paradise.
had lot's of fun. built a variety of hits including a nice cliff drop booter you can just see in the shot below (upper left). check out Matt Eklund's photo's from the day: http://mattheweklund.zenfolio.com/paradise
i'll leave you with a picture i took. his are much better!
had lot's of fun. built a variety of hits including a nice cliff drop booter you can just see in the shot below (upper left). check out Matt Eklund's photo's from the day: http://mattheweklund.zenfolio.com/paradise
i'll leave you with a picture i took. his are much better!
author=cornRIDE link=topic=17947.msg75946#msg75946 date=1289845180]
figured i'd post in case some folks may just be curious about the snowpack and levels low enough for the 'casual outing' from the lot at paradise.
Well? I'm curious. What is the snowpack doing?
On Friday, the snowpack at Paradise was horrid chaotic styrofoam above 7k. Poor coverage in many places that had been scraped bare by the wind. Lots of sastrugi at places with maximum wind speed such as crests.
At the top of Pan Point, I saw an older skin track that had been excavated by the wind, so the tracks appeared to "float" above the snow. Didn't see any notable wind slab, likely because high winds had simply blown most of the snow to Kingdom Come.
In protected areas below 7k, the snowpack was composed of decomposing/fragmented crystals, and mostly well-bonded to a variety of interfaces, including sun crust, the ground, rocks, and so forth. Patchy clouds during the day almost certainly set up a greenhouse effect that warmed the snow at lower elevations. This contributed to fairly quick consolidation of the new snow.
Thanks to moderate temps, and the rough, irregular surface onto which the new snow fell, stability was excellent, and ski quality was "high" for Paradise, with patches of cold powder in places and soft, slightly damp snow in other areas.
However, take this with a grain of salt: coverage was fairly poor on steep slopes that had shed snow or anywhere snow had melted out or significantly consolidated in the 10 days prior.
At the top of Pan Point, I saw an older skin track that had been excavated by the wind, so the tracks appeared to "float" above the snow. Didn't see any notable wind slab, likely because high winds had simply blown most of the snow to Kingdom Come.
In protected areas below 7k, the snowpack was composed of decomposing/fragmented crystals, and mostly well-bonded to a variety of interfaces, including sun crust, the ground, rocks, and so forth. Patchy clouds during the day almost certainly set up a greenhouse effect that warmed the snow at lower elevations. This contributed to fairly quick consolidation of the new snow.
Thanks to moderate temps, and the rough, irregular surface onto which the new snow fell, stability was excellent, and ski quality was "high" for Paradise, with patches of cold powder in places and soft, slightly damp snow in other areas.
However, take this with a grain of salt: coverage was fairly poor on steep slopes that had shed snow or anywhere snow had melted out or significantly consolidated in the 10 days prior.
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