May 6, 2005, MRNP - Whiteout Fever
5/6/05
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2547
1
Met up with Jon, another splitter, at a gas station somewhere along 161. Pulled into the Paradise lot around 8:30am along with half dozen other cars. Foggy, but on the drive up there were sun breaks so we remained optimistic hoping it would burn off. Anyway parked right next to Chris and Rene, two skiers with rando junk fixed to some pistols. Rene couldn't resist showing off her new sticker - Don't point your pants at me. ??? ;D Within 15 minutes, the father of tay, Charles pulled up. Well after brief introductions and discussion on destination our group be off towards Camp Muir. Maybe by then the damn fog will burn off. >:(
Temperatures were warm enough that within a quarter mile of our cars all of us found ourselves stripping down to the minimums. Some of us more than others. ;D Eventually around Pebble Creek we bumped into a hiker who sported nothing but a neoprene short sleeve tee and a pair of daisy dukes. ??? Thought only waitresses at Hooters could get away with wearing those in public. So between that and Rene's soccer shorts and short sleeve cotton tee it was a toss up? ;D Did I forget to mention that the snow was soft so it made for an easy skin. From time to time the sun would shine thru providing time to scope things out. Back at the parking lot chat about the Nisqually chute arose. Looks like mother nature had already done it's own control work in the chute. Big debris pile up was visible. Anyways Charles, who claims he's outta shape, made quick work of the summer route traverse up to Pan Pt and soon vanished with the fog. The rest of us marched on wondering if we would ever see marathon man again.
Eventually we all arrived at Pebble Creek. Jon and I traversed part of the headwall and up thru the gully. Chris and Rene booted up and ran into Charles. I laid a skin trail close to the rocks cause the fog still hadn't burned off completely. Every now and then it would clear up and the sun would beam but just on the snowfield. Then the fog set in with visibility around 40 feet or so. At least the snow was smooth and buttery. Our group eventually stopped around 8500ft, just near the base of Moon Rocks. A decision was made to bag the original plan for Muir to Nisqually chute to just the chute before conditions got too bad. Too late. >:( The whiteout officially set in. It went from no wind to windy and temperatures dropped enough that the combination called for our shells. As we neared the ridge I pulled out my altimeter and the elevation displayed should have put us right at the entrance. From what we scopped out the fog only covered less than a third of the chute. Well the pressure change from the front might have tinkered with my toy. No way from Paradise parking lot to chute entrance is over 7,000 vertical feet. ??? I asked Chris what he had. It didn't matter cause he didn't calibrate it. So we prodded around the ridge peering over cliff edges to see if we could find the entrance. Actually just hoping for a break in the visibility. Well Rainier was being ultra conservative and put on a low skirt on today. And to top things off my final board cut released around 6 inches of wet fresh on about a 35 degree slope. Snow was sliding a firmer layer that would have made a fine carvable surface. Wet sluff is not usually a problem but rather fun to play in but when I didn't realize I to was sliding down hill it was time to go. Damn vertigo! That coupled with the pleasant sound of snow moving rocks. So we traversed out and eventually bumped into our skin track near the rock band.
Well the snow conditions made up for the bad visibility. Snow had a non-stick creamy, velvety feel to it. After a thou plus of that we broke below the fog/cloud deck just above 7,000ft. Finally got visibility but the snow thickened. Best option was to descend via Pan Pt's east side vincinty and drop into Edith Creek. We played with our sluffs and listened to the hissing sound of wet snow sliding on two steep pitches before the flats above EC. I checked out a couple of pinners dropping into the basin that went thru last Friday but complety melted after a week. >:( Off to Golden Gate which still had plenty of snow. I milked what little turns I could while trying not to sacrifice speed to make it up thru the first creek. Armed with a pole in each hand this one turned out to be an arm burner. And up there for the slowest straight line.
Back at the parking lot it was all smiles. Turned out to be quite an adventure with plenty of distractions for all. Charles and Chris both snapped some pics. Wondering if the result would be close in comparison to using the magnetic lasso tool on the individual and pasting it onto a white sheet of paper in photoshop. ;D Goodtimes.
Temperatures were warm enough that within a quarter mile of our cars all of us found ourselves stripping down to the minimums. Some of us more than others. ;D Eventually around Pebble Creek we bumped into a hiker who sported nothing but a neoprene short sleeve tee and a pair of daisy dukes. ??? Thought only waitresses at Hooters could get away with wearing those in public. So between that and Rene's soccer shorts and short sleeve cotton tee it was a toss up? ;D Did I forget to mention that the snow was soft so it made for an easy skin. From time to time the sun would shine thru providing time to scope things out. Back at the parking lot chat about the Nisqually chute arose. Looks like mother nature had already done it's own control work in the chute. Big debris pile up was visible. Anyways Charles, who claims he's outta shape, made quick work of the summer route traverse up to Pan Pt and soon vanished with the fog. The rest of us marched on wondering if we would ever see marathon man again.
Eventually we all arrived at Pebble Creek. Jon and I traversed part of the headwall and up thru the gully. Chris and Rene booted up and ran into Charles. I laid a skin trail close to the rocks cause the fog still hadn't burned off completely. Every now and then it would clear up and the sun would beam but just on the snowfield. Then the fog set in with visibility around 40 feet or so. At least the snow was smooth and buttery. Our group eventually stopped around 8500ft, just near the base of Moon Rocks. A decision was made to bag the original plan for Muir to Nisqually chute to just the chute before conditions got too bad. Too late. >:( The whiteout officially set in. It went from no wind to windy and temperatures dropped enough that the combination called for our shells. As we neared the ridge I pulled out my altimeter and the elevation displayed should have put us right at the entrance. From what we scopped out the fog only covered less than a third of the chute. Well the pressure change from the front might have tinkered with my toy. No way from Paradise parking lot to chute entrance is over 7,000 vertical feet. ??? I asked Chris what he had. It didn't matter cause he didn't calibrate it. So we prodded around the ridge peering over cliff edges to see if we could find the entrance. Actually just hoping for a break in the visibility. Well Rainier was being ultra conservative and put on a low skirt on today. And to top things off my final board cut released around 6 inches of wet fresh on about a 35 degree slope. Snow was sliding a firmer layer that would have made a fine carvable surface. Wet sluff is not usually a problem but rather fun to play in but when I didn't realize I to was sliding down hill it was time to go. Damn vertigo! That coupled with the pleasant sound of snow moving rocks. So we traversed out and eventually bumped into our skin track near the rock band.
Well the snow conditions made up for the bad visibility. Snow had a non-stick creamy, velvety feel to it. After a thou plus of that we broke below the fog/cloud deck just above 7,000ft. Finally got visibility but the snow thickened. Best option was to descend via Pan Pt's east side vincinty and drop into Edith Creek. We played with our sluffs and listened to the hissing sound of wet snow sliding on two steep pitches before the flats above EC. I checked out a couple of pinners dropping into the basin that went thru last Friday but complety melted after a week. >:( Off to Golden Gate which still had plenty of snow. I milked what little turns I could while trying not to sacrifice speed to make it up thru the first creek. Armed with a pole in each hand this one turned out to be an arm burner. And up there for the slowest straight line.
Back at the parking lot it was all smiles. Turned out to be quite an adventure with plenty of distractions for all. Charles and Chris both snapped some pics. Wondering if the result would be close in comparison to using the magnetic lasso tool on the individual and pasting it onto a white sheet of paper in photoshop. ;D Goodtimes.
Eric, it was good to finally do some turns with you, and always enjoyable to see good snowboarders do their thing. Maybe it was a good thing we couldn't find the entrance to the Chutes, given how ready to slide that top layer was. With the good quality of the snow for turns we would have been pretty tempted to head on down.
I didn't take any photos in the fog, but did get some nice ones as we dropped into Edith Creek basin from Pan Point. Here's one of Eric and John just below Pan Point (more next Monday):
BTW, I drove back home via Cayuse Pass, and I think that if we had gone instead to the NE side of Rainier we would have had much better visibility, thanks to the rain/cloud shadow.
I didn't take any photos in the fog, but did get some nice ones as we dropped into Edith Creek basin from Pan Point. Here's one of Eric and John just below Pan Point (more next Monday):
BTW, I drove back home via Cayuse Pass, and I think that if we had gone instead to the NE side of Rainier we would have had much better visibility, thanks to the rain/cloud shadow.
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