November 26, 2011, - MRNP's Thanksgiving Leftovers

Mother Nature served up a healthy portion of mashed potatoes with a small dose of drenching drizzle on the side. But what the heck -- we knew what we were getting into before we left home: warm temperatures, a good chance of rain, and heavy (did I say heavy?!) snow. But we also knew that we Just Needed to Get Out, so up to Paradise we drove, out of the truck we hopped (after a few minutes of discussion -- "Do we really want to ski in this drizzle?"), and up to Mazama Ridge and the back bowl we went.

Skiing conditions were as expected (pretty bad!), but the drizzle stopped right after we left the truck, the fog lifted, the sun came out (albeit briefly), and we made the best of it -- making a few turns in the back bowl, doing some beacon practice (something we never take the time to do on powder days, even though we should), touring around a bit, and then skiing (?!) a final run down the front side of Mazama Ridge. We saw no signs of instability on this day, although we did see signs of slides and rollers from days past.

Sorry, no pictures of sweet turns or perfect tracks, because none of either was anywhere to be found (in fact, I was making some kind of giant S-turn things -- survival skiing at its finest -- and think I might have, um, crossed my husband's tracks ;)). We did see a cool cloud, and lots of snow melting on trees. >:(   

In the end we used more energy skiing down than we did skinning up, but that's OK, we had fun -- who can complain when you're out in the mountains? (OK, I can sometimes, but not this time.) And unlike the  Black Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday madness, we didn't get trampled or pepper sprayed, so all-in-all I'd call it a pretty good day (but I hope the powder returns soon).