Home > Trip Reports > April 3, 2005, MRNP

April 3, 2005, MRNP

4/3/05
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
6405
14
Posted by Scotsman on 4/3/05 7:07pm
Since my usual skiing buddy, Grant was AWOL chasing women, I headed up to Paradise solo in the hope of hooking up with some crew.
Started skinning towards Edith Creek and at the bridge met up with Ron J and his crew , Jeanette and Jeff.
They had just skied Devil' Dip and kindly invited me to join them. Knowing the intimate knowledge posessed by this crew of the mountain and all Ron J's secret stashes , my luck was in and I readily accepted.
We immediately bushwacked down the slope from the bridge to the Paradise road and then skinned up Bund'ys.
At the top we met two tele-girls from the NE who where staying with Gator and had been lapping Bundy's.
We skied Bundy's and the snow was great. At the bottom we decided to do it again. However, upon reaching the top, Ron J decided that we should ski " Why Not",this entailed skinning up the steep slope above Bundy's to the ridge on skier's right of Sunny Side ( the bowl right of Golden Gate). This was necessary to get enough height to avoid having to skin over to the " why not" entry. After some steep skinning, the ski down Sunnyside was the best of the day. Nice snow and waist shots.
We then traversed over to Why Not . After a nice rollover we turned sharp right at a big tree and traversed onto the steep slope below White's Knuckle. The run below, I was informed , was called Pillow Talk. Again nice snow and great turns. A final skin up the road and hesitation whether or not to ski Last Chance, ( the steep slope below the wall near the car park), we retuned to the car after an absolutely great day.
Thanks to Ron J, Jeanette and Jeff for showing me around and what a great day!!! ;D ;D
Great report, Chris.
It was great having you along... and thanks for breaking trail all the way up Bundy's.
And Great Scotty imitation  :D... good grins.
("Scotty - you've got to give me WARP 9" [for the movie])
(Oh - and btw, "Jeff" is really Jerry  :) )

Woops, sorry Jerry for calling you Jeff.
Great day.
The only thing as good as a day like that was what my partner , Grant was probably doing and that only lasts a few minutes at my age. ;)

Yeah, but you're going Warp 9 . . .

Is that fast or slow?
(I'm not enough of a trekkie to know ???)

That is near the top speed of the Enterprise. Above warp 10, the Dilithium crystals cannot convert the hyper-plasma into warp energy fast enough which is why you hear Scotty saying all the time,  " But , Captian, the Dilithium crystals won't hold out much longer"
Now you know!

It had to be one of the best days yet at Paradise.  When we got to the parking lot shortly after 9:00 there were only four other cars there!  We seemed to have the whole area to ourselves.  With so much new snow and so many places to go, our first run was within 5 minutes of the car  ;D  We were like a bunch of little kids in a candy store, and wanted all of it.  So Ron, Jerry and I scampered off just a little higher and a little farther away from the car to find more, where Chris met up with us and we took him for a little tour to some of our favorite spots.  

Some photos are here.
http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/paradise4305.msnw

It truly was a great day, with all the good toys for playing.   ;D

damnit! I knew we should have gone to Paradise on Sunday. We chose a resort weekend at Mt Baker intead. Pretty fun though. That looks like pretty good coverage - maybe the best I've seen all year - and good snow too. You gotta have a TAY party for sure now.

Oh yeah, Mike, the coverage...  We forgot to mention that.
There's an easy three feet, or more, of snow over the skimpy coverage we were skiing on mid to late march.
Ski pole tests went to the handle on most all aspects.  We started out skiing the trees just from the sheer volume of recent snow.  As we gained more experience with the snowpack through field testing we realized that the foot or more of consolidated (which fell wet and later got rained on) underneath the 4 to 6 inches of fresh refused to budge regardless of aspect or angle.  The surface fresh, of course, sloughed easily on steep angles regardless of aspect.
And you're right, Mike we certainly need a Crystal Fest now... Looks like the first weekend after closing of Crystal is the weekend of 16/17.  Guess that should be the weekend if we hold to tradition, eh?

"Scotty - you've got to give me WARP 9"...

... only lasts a few minutes at my age. ;)

Yeah, but you're going Warp 9 . . .

Is that fast or slow?

That is near the top speed of the Enterprise. Above warp 10, the Dilithium crystals cannot convert the hyper-plasma into warp energy fast enough which is why you hear Scotty saying all the time,  " But , Captian, the Dilithium crystals won't hold out much longer"
Now you know!

Chris, you must be the REAL Scotty... only HE could know that.  ;)

I still can't believe that crust held us up!   Definitely nice to Spring Ahead and Fall Back into Winter 8)  (14mb video)
Chris: Sorry I didn't catch more footage of you, next time man. Good skiing from all!!
Skifest: Let's do it!!! 8)

PS ---Anyone in the Mountaineers Glacier Travel and Cravasse Rescue class needs to know the SBH (Secret Backcountry Handshake) by this weeks class for the test. (See Video) 8)

I missed Jerry White diving into a tree well?!?!?!?  Thank God someone else will be on the blopper film besides me.  

Students, don't be fooled.  That was the goober handshake and NOT the real SBH.

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

Those slopes look familiar, but where are all the little trees that were there earlier in the year?

Darryl, you were just WISHing it was you in that tree well.  I've seen both of us enjoy them every bit as much as Jerry was in the viddy.
Gus, the trees are COVERED! Cool, eh?
Jerry keeps threatening to quit doing the viddy's as it is so time consuming to crank them out from the footage of the ski day.  I sure hope he never quits, tho; what a great tool to help re-live a stellar ski day... ;D and a Secret Backcountry Handshake to boot! 8)  How sweet is that! :D  (it was THE one, Darryl, I was there, it was NOT the Goober handshake)
Now we have another student challenge for the Glacier Travel Quizzes. ???
I would think an intimate working knowledge of the SBH should certainly be a requirement for graduation, eh?
Very cool video, Jerman.  It has joined the others in my permanent archive.  Thanks!  :)


Glad to hear you all had a stellar day with the new coverage!  Too bad i can't ski multiple places simultaneously.  I was at Baker on Sunday having fun exploring in and out of bounds with the girls  Allyson, Cinnamon, Kelly and one lucky guy Paul Russell  :D .

Sounds like the "Crevasse Angels" are at it again. ;)

Reply to this TR

2194
april-3-2005-mrnp
Scotsman
2005-04-04 02:07:39