December 4-5: Tatoosh
12/15/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2578
4
Got a late start and skinned from Narada up to the basin just below Castle and Pinnacle and set up camp. Always nice to camp out there for a night and have turns for breakfast. Saw at least 4 parties descending out of the basin on our way up, each reporting interesting conditions and wind, but fun skiing nonetheless. We arrived in the upper basin and found strong winds, windpacked powder, windslab, and hardpack of several varieties. Due to our late start we decided just to hunker down and get warm. Sunday morning we took a nice top to bottom run from Castle Saddle with nice recycled pow in the upper basin to heavy snow down low in the trees. Lapped the upper basin a few more times and then headed over to the next basin, Sunbeam I believe? Best recycled pow of the day over there. For the last run we skied out of the slushcup bowl to the road. Again nice recycled and windbuffed pow up high. Nice outing, good skiing still exists up there, but looking forward to a refill. Oh yeah, saw a lot of wind transport and some obvious slab buildup on nearly all aspects and some small slab releases on Northeast aspects off Pinnacle and a sizeable slab release on the rollover below the upper basin with a big slab debris pile below...be careful out there!
saw them tracks yesterday. about 2pm the heavens opened up and gave us blue skies. pray for a refresh soon! way to get after it! nice work!
Thanks for the heads up...we saw a lot of similar evidence, although smaller in size, up north on N-E facing slopes too.
Toured the Tatoosh on Saturday the 4th. Made the decision to avoid the rollover on the lower slopes as mentioned. We did witness 2 skiers decending the rolloverslope from a distance below. One skier stopped mid slope in the an obvious avalanche chute. I had just mentioned to my partner that was now wise when a fracture occured approximately 10' above carring the skier to the bottom of the slope. We were about to skin up to give assistance when we heard the shouts that he was not injured. Shortly after on the road by reflection lake the 2 skiers appeared. We questioned them and there decision making process. They were very humbled and lesson was learned. We watched another party (with limited skills) decend the same slope without incident. I could not watch anymore as the upper slope was loaded and unsupported by the resulting slide. I was amazed at the volume of skiers in the area and predicted more carnage would happen on that slope alone.
Later at the Cppoer Creek we toasted each other on making safe decisions.
Later at the Cppoer Creek we toasted each other on making safe decisions.
Crazy. It definintely looked like it could have been skier triggered. Scary stuff. Thanks for the heads up.
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