February 12, 2005, Mazama Ridge
2/12/05
WA Cascades East Slopes North
2667
3
Good news...it snowed hard in the Paradise area today!
Got a late start, but still ended up skiing four runs in the back bowl of Mazama Ridge. Days are getting longer! The new snow was pretty manky and not nearly the dream powder of last Sundays dump at Paradise. But skiable nonetheless, just a low grace factor at times... FYI, we found that the snow on the Paradise side of Mazama was lighter and a better ski than the back bowl.
Dug a couple of pits on 30 degree slopes E and N facing and found decent stabililty. About 4" of fresh on top of a light crust overlaying last weeks 12" powder which is, in turn on top of consolidated cinderblock. The top fresh packed and crumbled a bit at the crust on strike 6, then no further movement through stike 30. Got the fresh to shear off the underlying crust with light shovel leverage. Didn't see any sign of slides anywhere.
We met some nice folks along the way today including the Scottsman and "no name Mack" Here's a pic of David, Mack and Chris (LR)
Ahh now that's nice!
Had an interesting ride home starting a couple of miles below Paradise where we saw tire tracks going through the snowbank and off the snow covered road over a steep embankment. We stopped to investigate and discovered a car about 40' down and flipped upside down, dangling dome light still burning bright. Pretty freaky! David scrambled down and found, much to our relief, that the car was vacant.
Another mile or so down the road we saw a fox and managed to photograph the beatiful little guy.
Well, good luck to all of you heading to Paradise in the morning. Bring your fat skis and enjoy yourselves!
Got a late start, but still ended up skiing four runs in the back bowl of Mazama Ridge. Days are getting longer! The new snow was pretty manky and not nearly the dream powder of last Sundays dump at Paradise. But skiable nonetheless, just a low grace factor at times... FYI, we found that the snow on the Paradise side of Mazama was lighter and a better ski than the back bowl.
Dug a couple of pits on 30 degree slopes E and N facing and found decent stabililty. About 4" of fresh on top of a light crust overlaying last weeks 12" powder which is, in turn on top of consolidated cinderblock. The top fresh packed and crumbled a bit at the crust on strike 6, then no further movement through stike 30. Got the fresh to shear off the underlying crust with light shovel leverage. Didn't see any sign of slides anywhere.
We met some nice folks along the way today including the Scottsman and "no name Mack" Here's a pic of David, Mack and Chris (LR)
Ahh now that's nice!
Had an interesting ride home starting a couple of miles below Paradise where we saw tire tracks going through the snowbank and off the snow covered road over a steep embankment. We stopped to investigate and discovered a car about 40' down and flipped upside down, dangling dome light still burning bright. Pretty freaky! David scrambled down and found, much to our relief, that the car was vacant.
Another mile or so down the road we saw a fox and managed to photograph the beatiful little guy.
Well, good luck to all of you heading to Paradise in the morning. Bring your fat skis and enjoy yourselves!
Good to hear its snowing at Rainier again. i spent Tuesday through Friday camped up there on Mazama Ridge. It was my first time exploring mazama Ridge and I was impressed. We mainly snowboarded on the West
side of the ridge were the snow seem to stay good despite the weeks heavy sun. On our last night we also had an encounter with a fox. he tried to get at our food in our camp when we were sittiing out at night. The rest of the night he circled our camp and would try to sneak
into camp anytime we turned our back. Anyway im glad to hear there getting new snow there because im thininking of heading back next week.
Sean
side of the ridge were the snow seem to stay good despite the weeks heavy sun. On our last night we also had an encounter with a fox. he tried to get at our food in our camp when we were sittiing out at night. The rest of the night he circled our camp and would try to sneak
into camp anytime we turned our back. Anyway im glad to hear there getting new snow there because im thininking of heading back next week.
Sean
Interesting...our posse had a blast all day in the back bowl. We skied 6-7 runs for a total of almost 5,000vf and skied almost every aspect back there. The south facing lines were like 2" of new on a smooth groomer. The east facing lines were a bit crusty for the first 2 turns and then it was all good. Ahh, but the north facing slopes were the deepest. We finished our day there. The sun cooperated for most of the day so vis. was not an issue. Got to say, though, the run back out to the road was nice too. Our group and consisted of, jimeo, scott v., kam, skiphotomatt, Michael, Corrine, Allyson, bcpinhead, Kelvin, cascadesfreak...I think that's it. I think Kam probably got some nice shots of folks, mine didn't turn out so well, but I'll post a few here:
Hey JibberD, Nice meeting you on Saturday. Sounds like you had an interesting trip after we left you. Thanks for posting the photo. Ended up going back up on Sunday .After promising the wife some family time , I coudn't stop pacing aroung the house muttering about powder and she finally relented and said go, so I left the house at about 10:30 and had a nice aftenoon skiing a nice north facing slope with sweet powder with some guys who where kind enough to let me drop in with them.
If the sun comes out today and Tuesday as predicted I bet there's going to be some sick days taken off work this week. ;D
If the sun comes out today and Tuesday as predicted I bet there's going to be some sick days taken off work this week. ;D
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