June 9-10, 2001, Interglacier, Mt. Rainier

I spent Saturday and Sunday up on Rainier doing the ski from Steamboat Prow down the Inter glacier back into Glacier Basin. The 5500 ft snow level on Saturday and 4000 ft level brought winter back to Rainier and both days we had fresh snow to ski on. Saturday proved to be the best day, a few inches of fresh over a firm base, we got in a nice 4000 vert ft. run on suprisingly consistant snow conditions. Sunday morning it was snowing at just about 4000 feet and there was six inches or more of new snow in glacier basin. The cloud cover was thicker than Saturday so despite having ample deep new snow to ski, we couldn't see very well at all. Skiing down the snout of the glacier we knocked off some sizable sloughs and wet snow avalanches had already ran into the basin from the cliff bands to the west of Mt.Ruth. I was suprised by the number of people in the basin still trying to take a shot at the summit and the lack of fellow skiers up there. A bit of advice for anyon! e going up there, we roped up for skinning up the glacier, the usual crevasse at around 8000 already has evidence that climbers have been busting through the snowbridges. Hope everyone else in the PNW enjoyed the freshies this weekend.

Pete