September 23, 2011, Paradise Glacier
9/23/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2653
3
Even though I already have this month in the books, and am enjoying my (short) season of road bike riding (including half of Vashon's Passport to Pain route, 72 miles/10000'), my neighbor needed to ski his first ever September day and the forecast seemed perfect.
We took the trail up from Fourth Crossing to Paradise Creek, enjoying the beautiful wildflowers to 6200', the solitude, and the even smoother than last month snow, likely thanks to the rain over the past weekend. Skinning began around 6300' and we continued up the easternmost edge of the Paradise Glacier, crossed the long crevasse at 8000' via the (apparently) strong snow bridge, and enjoyed smooth soft skiing from 8680' to 6400' with a short ski carry.
http://vimeo.com/29579085 http://vimeo.com/29579244
We saw recent tracks on the far west steep slopes ending at what appeared from below to be a twenty foot cliff. Hope one or more of those who made the tracks are lurking here, and can let us know how they exited? Thanks. :)
We took the trail up from Fourth Crossing to Paradise Creek, enjoying the beautiful wildflowers to 6200', the solitude, and the even smoother than last month snow, likely thanks to the rain over the past weekend. Skinning began around 6300' and we continued up the easternmost edge of the Paradise Glacier, crossed the long crevasse at 8000' via the (apparently) strong snow bridge, and enjoyed smooth soft skiing from 8680' to 6400' with a short ski carry.
http://vimeo.com/29579085 http://vimeo.com/29579244
We saw recent tracks on the far west steep slopes ending at what appeared from below to be a twenty foot cliff. Hope one or more of those who made the tracks are lurking here, and can let us know how they exited? Thanks. :)
Way to keep gettin' it done.
How painful was that road biking?
How painful was that road biking?
author=silaswild link=topic=21818.msg93373#msg93373 date=1316829500]
We saw recent tracks on the far west steep slopes ending at what appeared from below to be a twenty foot cliff. Hope one or more of those who made the tracks are lurking here, and can let us know how they exited? Thanks. :)
Tara and I were up there on the 20th and ran into two skiers when we were crossing over from Muir to the Paradise. (Just above McClure Rock) They said they were going to see how far they could make it down on the Paradise side of the rock band. I noticed that they had skinned up that way so we decided to give it a try on the way down. It was a fun ski and cool to learn a new area. We had skied the far west steep slopes down to the lower Paradise in August which ended in a creek/cliff now. From here it was a quick sidestep up or a short boot then a traverse to the right. Then a short carry to patch of snow that put us on the Skyline trail. We hiked down to a sign that said .3 to Pan Point. Walked a couple hundred feet towards Pan Point then put our skis back on where we traversed and sidestepped to the sitting area just below the Pan Point outhouse. From here we hiked back to our car via Dead Horse Creek. The other skiers tracks continued down a snow patch just east of Pan Point. Not sure how far they made it down? Great day to be out with awesome skiing conditions.
A few pics...
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.293366964013916.92582.100000218445455&l=efc04982a8&type=1
Silaswild......I believe that was my buddy Dan and I. We had a great ski down from 8,100' after booting and skinning up on a traverse. Our first time coming in this way, so we weren't 100% sure where to go. There were a lot of steep rollovers that ended with cliffs, as you saw our tracks.
We stopped when a rollover turned to rock, and started booting back up. My buddy fell about 100', booted back up, dropped a ski back down the mountain where it launched into the rocks. Then we booted back up AGAIN, followed the ridge out below Pan, and hiked out the switchbacks at Golden.
Super fun day. I'll post our video soon after done editing.
waddle
We stopped when a rollover turned to rock, and started booting back up. My buddy fell about 100', booted back up, dropped a ski back down the mountain where it launched into the rocks. Then we booted back up AGAIN, followed the ridge out below Pan, and hiked out the switchbacks at Golden.
Super fun day. I'll post our video soon after done editing.
waddle
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