December 2, 2004, Rock Mountain
12/2/04
1911
1
Looking up the drainage from the Highway 2 the snow pack looked so slim we almost decided to drive to Rainier. After a brief discussion Matt and I decided to go up anyway. We hit consistant snow coverage at a little over 4K. In a total white-out we turned into the east bowl at around 6.5K. The wind was blowing moderately hard and snow was appropriately crusted. The first few turns had us falling over on the flats because we could tell if there was any angle to the slope.
As we worked our way down to the lake visibility gradually improved and the snow pack was slightly less wind crusted. At Rock Lake we skinned over to the exit creek thinking of heading out that direction, however there was hardly any snow coverage. After punching through the shallow creek ice, we skinned back a little ways and climbed to regain the ridge and traverse the east facing slopes toward the trail. In the protected slopes below the trail we found a good run in 14" of light powder on top of a solid crust. Good day out despite the poor conditions.
Matt fighting to hold a turn in the wind crust:
As we worked our way down to the lake visibility gradually improved and the snow pack was slightly less wind crusted. At Rock Lake we skinned over to the exit creek thinking of heading out that direction, however there was hardly any snow coverage. After punching through the shallow creek ice, we skinned back a little ways and climbed to regain the ridge and traverse the east facing slopes toward the trail. In the protected slopes below the trail we found a good run in 14" of light powder on top of a solid crust. Good day out despite the poor conditions.
Matt fighting to hold a turn in the wind crust:
We actually hit skinnable snow at ca. 4800ft. The trip was great fun up in an alpine environment, even if the snow up high was horrifying. The snow in the trees along the ridge was fluffy and nice, so we got some good turns in. The skating on Rock Lake was fun too.
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