December 5, 2004, Paradise area, MRNP
12/5/04
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2535
4
Dec 5 2004 Mazama Back Bowl
With help from friends a combined group of Tacoma and Seattle Mountaineers knocked the air out of a lot of Powder in the back bowl. Threatening whiteout above treeline kept us skiing in 4" of fresh powder over some thicker snow. Perhaps 30 " of snow cover with a few bigger rocks still showing. Ridges were windblown and raw. Good bond on Thanksgiving crust but windslabs developed all day as wind picked up. I had the good fortune and unusal experience of being in the center of large snow devil. Everyone dissapeared for a few seconds ! New snow falling around 300 p.m. as we skied down to the horseshoe bend. Dorothea Driggers was in top form doing more than her share and gloating. New found Germans friends Claire and Armin were not shy for thier first time at Paradise! I got a hunch us regulars of Mt Rainier will be seeing more of them. Heard JW,Stephan and MAd Dog on the radio all day.
The road going home was pretty bad and there was a couple spinouts.
Robie
With help from friends a combined group of Tacoma and Seattle Mountaineers knocked the air out of a lot of Powder in the back bowl. Threatening whiteout above treeline kept us skiing in 4" of fresh powder over some thicker snow. Perhaps 30 " of snow cover with a few bigger rocks still showing. Ridges were windblown and raw. Good bond on Thanksgiving crust but windslabs developed all day as wind picked up. I had the good fortune and unusal experience of being in the center of large snow devil. Everyone dissapeared for a few seconds ! New snow falling around 300 p.m. as we skied down to the horseshoe bend. Dorothea Driggers was in top form doing more than her share and gloating. New found Germans friends Claire and Armin were not shy for thier first time at Paradise! I got a hunch us regulars of Mt Rainier will be seeing more of them. Heard JW,Stephan and MAd Dog on the radio all day.
The road going home was pretty bad and there was a couple spinouts.
Robie
Nice TR Robie, but you need to edit your subject!
Thanks Gaper J ,consider it done. I didn't know that it was possible to edit post post.
We spent the day focusing on breaking our rule of "never leave perfectly skiable snow in search of better snow".
We did a pretty good job of it, too 8)
We did a pretty good job of it, too 8)
The wind slabs did form quick, but the layers that worry me are all the stuff above the rain/rime crust (Thanksgiving) and a (sun?) crust underneath the (inch) of snow that fell last wk. At 5kft on N aspects facing Rainier in the Tatoosh, I found a very weak layer on Sat one inch down. - Had a great circumnavigation of Pinnacle, Castle, and a ski up Hall Foss. In Pinnacle trail (barely enough snow to skin up on) and out the drainage on the NE? side of Castle. Not a trip I would do in unstable conditions!
Sun I spent the nice am placing poles for the park, and the pm on the "normal run" - wich by that time was stormy and skied out.
Sun I spent the nice am placing poles for the park, and the pm on the "normal run" - wich by that time was stormy and skied out.
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