April 18, 2011, Mt. Rainier, Muir Sun and Powder
4/18/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
4570
5
Low expectation day turned into sunshine and boot top powder. 8)
Most of the day was spent in the clouds until the last 500' vertical.
Then the mountain came out :D
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=219920358025244&id=100000218445455&aid=70360&l=a9bc97fbae
http://contour.com/stories/muirerins1st-041811
Most of the day was spent in the clouds until the last 500' vertical.
Then the mountain came out :D
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=219920358025244&id=100000218445455&aid=70360&l=a9bc97fbae
http://contour.com/stories/muirerins1st-041811
The snow looked great.
too bad we didn't see this this morning! We started to Muir, found icy patches going up Pan face, cut right, skinned up on 1-10 inches (highly variable) snow on top of blue ice; above the Pan overlook area, we found just a couple of inched on top of ice; once heading towards McClure Rock, we encountered variable snow depth, icy patches, and, like in your video, we had snow showers/low visibility moving in and out; so we decided to ski below McClure on snow that varied greatly in depth over an ice crust of 1 inch over sugar snow over and bullet-proof ice crust; then down towards Golden Gate with roller coaster runnels and variable snow; Golden Gate, however, was beautiful; more than a foot of powder on top of the rain crust; super fast, super smooth, as was the ski from there down to Edith Creek, and after a traverse, to Paradise! Very nice day, but not the continuous powder skiing you encountered on the snowfield proper; talked to another skier who turned around at 8,500 ft asl because of limited visibility, variable snow, and icy patches.
The first 1000' vertical was variable for us too. Then about 2000' of boot top pow followed by dust on crust to the parking lot. Without the break in the weather it would have been a very challenging ski.
Looks awesome Freebird can't wait to make it up there.
Glad you lucked out with the weather, and found sun and powder up there unexpectedly, Carl.
Just a heads up to others though: that powder is ALL GONE. Skied from Muir yesterday April 20, no powder left, all breakable trap crust. Not really skiable, except by long traverses linked by cautious turns.
Better snow above 9500 ft (solid supportive frozen crust) and below 6400 ft (inch of softened snow atop firm supportive crust, decent turns). But the middle 3000 vert was nasty conditions, definitely in the bottom 5-10% out of my 100+ Muir descents.
Although with 4" new snow overnight, perhaps things may have improved now since yesterday, and there may be powder atop the breakable crust . . .
Just a heads up to others though: that powder is ALL GONE. Skied from Muir yesterday April 20, no powder left, all breakable trap crust. Not really skiable, except by long traverses linked by cautious turns.
Better snow above 9500 ft (solid supportive frozen crust) and below 6400 ft (inch of softened snow atop firm supportive crust, decent turns). But the middle 3000 vert was nasty conditions, definitely in the bottom 5-10% out of my 100+ Muir descents.
Although with 4" new snow overnight, perhaps things may have improved now since yesterday, and there may be powder atop the breakable crust . . .
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