Nov 21, 2010 Mazama Ridge - Pretty near Epic!

We left the parking lot about 9:30, and headed over to take a look at the slope just off the lot that runs down to the Paradise River valley. It looked good, but short, so we continued down the road. We passed a few ski crews who were looking greedily up at Mazama Ridge trying to "decide by committee" which up track to take. We headed past them, just downhill from 4th crossing, and chose one that someone thoughtfully put in yesterday, just for us, thank you very much, and left the committee behind.

As we went up, we got more and more excited. The snow was excellent - no sign of any wind crust, and our pole baskets poked in to 12" with no resistance, and about 24" with a little forcing. Out in the open, we could just see yesterday's tracks, but it was snowing lightly, and filling them in. At some point skinning up through the tree band, we zigged when we should have zagged, got out of the up track and struggled up someone's downhill line. I hope they had fun skiing it down, because it was bear skiing it up.

At the top of the ridge, we wandered north-easterly across the meadows in a flat light, worrying a bit about that. We hit the far side of the ridge just south of what I think RonJ calls Birthday Bowl. We had the area to ourselves, a nice 30-35 degree south facing slope, with a couple of 40 degree pitches and roll overs, and skied several laps. The powder was fabulous, about 3 feet deep, very stable, and perfect for face shots. The lighting turned out to be a non issue, since there were just enough terrain features and trees to give us good visual references. At one one point we heard and dimly saw another group wisely readying to ski down the north side of "our" ridge. I say wisely, because we were ready to fend off any poachers with violent gestures and head shakes to any who had the audacity to snake our lines and ride our escalator up. Anyone can use our uptrack... tomorrow... just sayin' Wink

It began snowing hard around 1:30 and continued the rest of the day. On the way out we headed south on Mazama and skied a nice NW facing slope through small trees, down to the road. Back up to the car by about 4:30, and drove down hill in flat light all the way to Longmire. I don't know if I'd rather ski in flat light, or drive in it. Actually neither. I hit one icy patch on the way down and careened back and forth about 4 times, before gently nosing into the ditch, just so I could get my bearings. 4-wheel drive got us out and right back up on the road, and adrenalin got me down the rest of the way. It snowed pretty hard all the way to Tacoma.