March 4 - Mazama Dome Birthday Tour
3/4/13
WA Cascades East Slopes North
1667
3
Birthday tour
I had asked for my birthday off work so I could do whatever I wanted on my special day. Naturally I wanted to go ski touring. I managed to rally my splitboarder friend Corbin to join me and he suggested touring around the Herman saddle area. I was down of course and we left Bellingham at 5:45am.
After some personal and vehicle fueling and Maple Falls we continued up to the Heather Parking lot. It was going to be a glorious day. Several inches on champagne powder on a rain crust seemed like good enough snow conditions for a bluebird day. It was also my new factory cut skins' maiden voyage.
The skin track along the base of Mt Herman was well worn as always. We got to the south side and continued up the drainage until we were forced onto an inclined traverse, heading for the saddle. It was fine for me, but the splitboarder was having problems keeping an edge on the sometimes very shallow rain layer. Curse the runnels and the idea to leave the crampons in the car.
We observed that nearly every face on Table Mtn and many on Herman's east side had slid dramatically and a lot of cornices were broken. Obviously from the rain event in the beginning of March, we were not too worried about stability today.
We made it to the saddle and turned North, bootpacking up Mazama Dome's gladed south side. When we came to the ridge we noticed fresh cornice building and windloading. The N side looked awesome and seemed stable but after taking the ridge to the summit we opted to ski the gladded south side, to the east of the summit. It was a little hard underneath as expected but great fun.
All the way down to Hayes Lake was the same. We transformed into uphill beasts again and made the climb up the saddle, after some edge-losing and frustrated traverses of course. Settling on skiing down the gut of the saddle between Table and Herman. We stopped to snap some photos of each other on a borrowed 5D Canon DSLR. Those pics coming soon.
The way down that side around 2:00 was starting to get quite slushy and sluffy. We choose mellow lines and avoided terrain traps. No slides triggered but it was getting looser. We decided to call it a good day from Bagley Lakes and headed back to the car. Talked with some nice guys sporting Bellingham S&R jackets about their trip around widow maker and up to Herman Summit. Sounds like a great time for all.
We ended up taking two runs inbounds just before we left, and it totally reaffirmed my love for touring. Ice and scrape vs powder and quite. Epic birthday!
I had asked for my birthday off work so I could do whatever I wanted on my special day. Naturally I wanted to go ski touring. I managed to rally my splitboarder friend Corbin to join me and he suggested touring around the Herman saddle area. I was down of course and we left Bellingham at 5:45am.
After some personal and vehicle fueling and Maple Falls we continued up to the Heather Parking lot. It was going to be a glorious day. Several inches on champagne powder on a rain crust seemed like good enough snow conditions for a bluebird day. It was also my new factory cut skins' maiden voyage.
The skin track along the base of Mt Herman was well worn as always. We got to the south side and continued up the drainage until we were forced onto an inclined traverse, heading for the saddle. It was fine for me, but the splitboarder was having problems keeping an edge on the sometimes very shallow rain layer. Curse the runnels and the idea to leave the crampons in the car.
We observed that nearly every face on Table Mtn and many on Herman's east side had slid dramatically and a lot of cornices were broken. Obviously from the rain event in the beginning of March, we were not too worried about stability today.
We made it to the saddle and turned North, bootpacking up Mazama Dome's gladed south side. When we came to the ridge we noticed fresh cornice building and windloading. The N side looked awesome and seemed stable but after taking the ridge to the summit we opted to ski the gladded south side, to the east of the summit. It was a little hard underneath as expected but great fun.
All the way down to Hayes Lake was the same. We transformed into uphill beasts again and made the climb up the saddle, after some edge-losing and frustrated traverses of course. Settling on skiing down the gut of the saddle between Table and Herman. We stopped to snap some photos of each other on a borrowed 5D Canon DSLR. Those pics coming soon.
The way down that side around 2:00 was starting to get quite slushy and sluffy. We choose mellow lines and avoided terrain traps. No slides triggered but it was getting looser. We decided to call it a good day from Bagley Lakes and headed back to the car. Talked with some nice guys sporting Bellingham S&R jackets about their trip around widow maker and up to Herman Summit. Sounds like a great time for all.
We ended up taking two runs inbounds just before we left, and it totally reaffirmed my love for touring. Ice and scrape vs powder and quite. Epic birthday!
Nice report---what you saw and decided was palpable.
So 8) that you had blue skies while we got snowing and blowing at Stevens that day.
So 8) that you had blue skies while we got snowing and blowing at Stevens that day.
It is great to get out on your birthday Steezer (or any sunny day).
I was in the two person group that toured over to Herman’s true summit that you mentioned and wanted to emphasize the conditions you described on top of Mazama Dome on Monday.
We went up and over Herman’s lower summit and traversed over to the base of Stoneman where we noticed the sun had started some point releases on that aspect (9am). Stoneman wasn’t our objective anyway so we continued traversing north and approached Herman’s highest summit from its NE basin. Like what we saw from the parking lot and along our way, most terrain in that basin had also slid big. But as we got higher we found significant wind slab from the new snow and places with deeper old snow that had not slid in the avy cycle. These were mostly hanging. We ran into some sketchy slab on the north side just below the summit - not what we climbed; just what we wanted to ski down. It started out stable, but after about 200 ft of turns down the north face, I stopped and booted back up to the ridge because the snow got progressively hollow with every turn. The area had bad consequences and no real way to manage the route safely with many cliffs and no areas with significant compression.
I have to say we were a bit surprised to find such conditions after the avy cycle. We all know we have to do our own local assessments of conditions - actual conditions encountered may be worse or better than suggested by NWAC. However, our actual conditions were exactly what we should have expected possible per NWAC for Monday at that elevation and aspect. We should not have been surprised … maybe just disappointed.
I was in the two person group that toured over to Herman’s true summit that you mentioned and wanted to emphasize the conditions you described on top of Mazama Dome on Monday.
author=EbenezerSteezer link=topic=27811.msg116933#msg116933 date=1362619122]
...we were not too worried about stability today.
...we came to the ridge we noticed fresh cornice building and windloading.
We went up and over Herman’s lower summit and traversed over to the base of Stoneman where we noticed the sun had started some point releases on that aspect (9am). Stoneman wasn’t our objective anyway so we continued traversing north and approached Herman’s highest summit from its NE basin. Like what we saw from the parking lot and along our way, most terrain in that basin had also slid big. But as we got higher we found significant wind slab from the new snow and places with deeper old snow that had not slid in the avy cycle. These were mostly hanging. We ran into some sketchy slab on the north side just below the summit - not what we climbed; just what we wanted to ski down. It started out stable, but after about 200 ft of turns down the north face, I stopped and booted back up to the ridge because the snow got progressively hollow with every turn. The area had bad consequences and no real way to manage the route safely with many cliffs and no areas with significant compression.
I have to say we were a bit surprised to find such conditions after the avy cycle. We all know we have to do our own local assessments of conditions - actual conditions encountered may be worse or better than suggested by NWAC. However, our actual conditions were exactly what we should have expected possible per NWAC for Monday at that elevation and aspect. We should not have been surprised … maybe just disappointed.
Nice. I was expecting that one or both of you would be on here. glad to be meet you. It was probably a good idea not to drop onto the N side of Mazama based on your information then. That N aspect was crazy.
And to think I was disappointed about not skiing it. SouthSide was SafeSide.
Cheers
PS Solidarity on rockin the manaslu setup
And to think I was disappointed about not skiing it. SouthSide was SafeSide.
Cheers
PS Solidarity on rockin the manaslu setup
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