Home > Trip Reports > October 31, 2004, Halloween on Mt. Rainier

October 31, 2004, Halloween on Mt. Rainier

10/31/04
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3345
5
Posted by bcpinhead on 10/31/04 11:44pm
Andrew Oakley and Wolf were kind enough to let me tag along with them on their tour up Rainier from Paradise yesterday.
As mentioned in the previous posts, we all got a bit of a late start due to the road being closed. After a "start your engines" from the ranger and my second breakfast of the day, we all lined up for the drive to Paradise.

We started up and I was excited to finally be skiing this amazing mountain.

We made it up to about 7500 feet(guys correct me if I am wrong) where the clouds parted and we got a spectacular view of Anvil rock and the snowfield leading up to it. I was truly amazed at the stunning views. Coming from Utah, I had never seen such a sight. The first part of the hike was like hiking in a milk jug. I guess I had better get used to that if I am going to stay here.

The wind was blowing pretty hard when we started down, but it did not affect the snow too much. We had great turning conditions most of the way down. There were a few excptions, but nothing too bad. There were definitely some burried "land mines", but we did well at avoiding them. Even the last few hundred feet leading down to Paradise were good turning conditions. It looks like the shrubbery will be covered soon.

I just want to thank Andrew and Wolf again for taking me on such an amazing tour and I am looking forward to going with them again soon. I have found that the people here in the North West are some of the nicest people that I have ever met and I am looking forward to touring with many more of you. :)
How did The Muir Snowfield look above 7500 feet. I came close to going up there on Sunday but ended up stying home to catch up on schoolwork. This has definatly been an amazing fall on the Muir Snowfield. I was able to snowboard it once in mid- september in 6 -10 inches of untracted powder and sunny skies and have been litching to return ever since.

"Coming from Utah, I had never seen such a sight."
Great feeling, isn't it? I moved here from Maine 2 years ago and had a similar experience in the same place. Don't worry, it just keeps getting better! :)

We made it up to about 7500 feet

More like 8500 feet; I had bad calibration on the altimeter but we were probably within 20 minutes of Moon Rocks.
How did The Muir Snowfield look above 7500 feet.
From 8500 where we started down, to 7500 feet, was where it was intermittently nice. It had a little of a windslab feel that messed me up a little on my seriously old-school Hexcels (sidecut? We don't need no steenking sidecut!) but once you had speed and rhythm it made for fun turns. After that, pretty much just below 7500, the visibility got bad basically same time that the snow got bad, which I suppose made some kind of sense (good snow would have been wasted on us here).
We can only speculate about what it was like above. Slabbier? Better? Wind was blasting hard. Hopefully someone who got higher than us can chime in. Late gate open and early appointments in town for Halloween conspired to set a 2PM turnaround where we were at ~8500, else we'd gone higher, for the view, and experience of being above the fogline alone.
It was a fun trip but with a couple little needles of fate thrown in, namely:
1) The infernal gate.
2) Getting from Pan Point to Pebble Creek was pretty painful really. Exposed rocks and nasty ice. All in 50 ft visibility. Above and below it was all good.
3) As we drove away and reached 161, it could be seen in the evening light that the only semblance of cloud on any part of the mountain was that which was hovering above the Muir Snowfield. Everywhere else had crystal visibility. So cruel.


Got up to Muir with KG and RB. For a change, the best powder was higher up. Very windy and in the climber's face but sunny down to about 7500. Did not see more than about 12 to make it there. Mighty fine day even with whiteout below.


When discussing this trip w Andru, I had originally threatended to appear in a long black robe and with an improvised scythe, while snowboarding. Thus, I would be the Grim Ripper. The trip ended up on skis, since it looked like a skin ascent was in order, but then Andrew called my bluff by producing a long black robe from the trunk of his car in the parking lot. Figured it was Halloween, and as fine a way to demark my first true 12 continuous months as any, so hauled this rather bulky robe up as descent-specific gear and cranked out some turns whilst swathed in the raiments of Doom. No scythe, sadly, and pix did not quite capture the ethereal effect that was intended. Oh well. Good fun. Good thing that Death was not a telemarker; there wouldn't have been any way to drop a knee while wearing an ankle length robe.

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october-31-2004-halloween-on-mt-rainier
bcpinhead
2004-11-01 07:44:51