Paradise environs 2/11-13
2/15/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
1825
1
spent three days up on rainier touring. Friday we found awesome weather with great visibility and some soft snow. climbed golden gate/bundy's to gain skyline ridge in some serious wind (muir had 150+ winds the next day) and rode 4th crossing to a snowbridge linking us to mazama. lapped mazama twice before heading back up to the lot via road- tried to save a bit of the legs for the next two days.
saturday, my girlfriend, ashley and i toured up to reflection lakes for the first time and went a good way up the approach to the castle saddle to spot the route we we're considering for sunday's tour. looks pretty straight forward and there's a lot of beta on here. hope to hit the awesome north facing saddle in the weeks to come. left reflection lakes at 5 pm with rain, then freezing rain and wind and finally snow flakes by the time we reached narada face.
after a stay at the copper creek inn we awoke sunday to 7 inches of fresh snow and blue skies. the longmire gate didn't open until 11am. headed up to bundy's again to ride 4th crossing. met the rangers and had some good conversations with them as we we're loosely united as a group. got a few good pictures of the tele skiers in front of us descending bundy's! crossed a snow bridge we found friday and headed up mazama to check out the back bowls and eat some lunch. found a cornice drop and rode the bowl before climbing out and heading back to the frontside of mazama. found ron j just as he was cresting mazama and he invited us to tour with his group of skiers down to the lower narada lot and yo yo me back up to my subie at paradise. after being deemed, "closet skiers" we dropped in and got some fresh turns on the most open part of the mazama face. "rode" down to the road and enjoyed a quick couple of turns down the narada face for the second day in a row. i love the pitch of that face. surprised it wasn't more tracked out on a sunday pow day at 430pm ;)
thanks ron, raul, phillip, serena and patrick?! enjoyed the day and it was good to hook up with you all for a few turns.
splitboard picture is me in the back bowls; the tele skier is unknown from bundy's descent.
saturday, my girlfriend, ashley and i toured up to reflection lakes for the first time and went a good way up the approach to the castle saddle to spot the route we we're considering for sunday's tour. looks pretty straight forward and there's a lot of beta on here. hope to hit the awesome north facing saddle in the weeks to come. left reflection lakes at 5 pm with rain, then freezing rain and wind and finally snow flakes by the time we reached narada face.
after a stay at the copper creek inn we awoke sunday to 7 inches of fresh snow and blue skies. the longmire gate didn't open until 11am. headed up to bundy's again to ride 4th crossing. met the rangers and had some good conversations with them as we we're loosely united as a group. got a few good pictures of the tele skiers in front of us descending bundy's! crossed a snow bridge we found friday and headed up mazama to check out the back bowls and eat some lunch. found a cornice drop and rode the bowl before climbing out and heading back to the frontside of mazama. found ron j just as he was cresting mazama and he invited us to tour with his group of skiers down to the lower narada lot and yo yo me back up to my subie at paradise. after being deemed, "closet skiers" we dropped in and got some fresh turns on the most open part of the mazama face. "rode" down to the road and enjoyed a quick couple of turns down the narada face for the second day in a row. i love the pitch of that face. surprised it wasn't more tracked out on a sunday pow day at 430pm ;)
thanks ron, raul, phillip, serena and patrick?! enjoyed the day and it was good to hook up with you all for a few turns.
splitboard picture is me in the back bowls; the tele skier is unknown from bundy's descent.
that looks like Brenda. Pretty decent skiing up there yesterday. We managed to make up for the late gate opening, but it put us back at the car well after 6:00.
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