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December 23, Paradise Bust

12/23/13
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
4572
9
Posted by avajane on 12/22/13 3:23pm
Had an adventure at Paradise with my son, but the skiing wasn't quite what we had hoped for. Because a foot of new snow had recently fallen, I was optimistic that we might get some good skiing. The freezing level was predicted to be high, but an experienced Northwestener like me knew that there were often windows of opportunity to be had on even the worst days in the mountains. We did not find that window... We had a late start and finally left right before 11am in a soaking mist behind two hoards of happy snow wreckers. There was a couple of inches of new on a pretty solid crust. We could have probably hiked everything we did in our boots. As we got higher there was even less new snow and still no ski penetration. I walked a few feet off trail and found a steep slope to stomp on and got no results at all. It was terrible snow but it wasn't really going anywhere. Visibility was bad, and once we were about a mile up most of the uninitiated had turned around. We couldn't see Pan Face even from right under it. I knew it was there so we continued slogging until we were making our own tracks. We tried to stay in the gully to keep out of the wind, but some barely visible cornices looked like they were going to get in the way. We went left to get above the cornices and then spent the rest of the time trying to not get near them. The wind had formed some wonderful snow sculptures that we couldn't see until we had walked into them. These would turn out to be very interesting on the "ski" down. I got out my cell phone "run tracker" and saw that we were indeed right on the Skyline Trail. We got to the point where the trail steepened and turned back to traverse to the top of the face. There were no tracks at all, so we were able to turn around comforted by the knowledge that we were the dumbest ones on the mountain (at least in that area). By that time, my son's gortex had failed, and he probably weighed an extra 20 pounds. The wind had come up very strong, and visibility had somehow gotten worse, and the ski down was certain to be a fine, character building,  whiteout experience.
For some reason everyone else had already left, so we got to enjoy the quiet solitude of  stiffly snowplowing over unseen rolls and drops on a nasty inch of mush on crust. The last five minutes down the lower trees actually had some good slippery snow and a few fun turns were had. We were so wet and cold we went inside the Visitor Center and enjoyed a $26 lunch of two bad, boiled hot dogs on crusty, 3 day old rolls, and a couple of 12 ounce cans of Rainer Beer. The Ranger inside asked about where we had been and I said that we had got to the point of danger and then turned around. He knew the spot. As we slinked back to the truck it started snowing for the first time all day.
That third picture tells a story!

You were able to teleport to the future and ski! We gotta hook up, I need to learn how to do this to see future park closures!

Looks like a fun trip overall :)

ah crap what day is it???  ??? ???

author=avajane link=topic=30085.msg126027#msg126027 date=1387783436]
... We were so wet and cold we went inside the Visitor Center and enjoyed a $26 lunch of two bad, boiled hot dogs on crusty, 3 day old rolls, and a couple of 12 ounce cans of Rainer Beer...


LOL.  Typical conscessionaire fare.  The only good concessionaire food I've had was at Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge; they had quite a chef there for a while, at least.  The food at the High Camp Lodge at White Pass is sometimes not bad. The food at Paradise Lodge, the couple of times I've eaten there was marginal as was the food at the Crescent Lake Lodge in Olympic NP--and for breakast I couldn't get eggs sunnyside up because that was against the park's rules.  ::)

Thanks for posting the pics.  Right up until I saw those I had myself convinced that it would be worth going to ski the "slippery snow."  I called my buddy at 6:30AM and called it off.

author=blackdog102395 link=topic=30085.msg126037#msg126037 date=1387821163]
Thanks for posting the pics.  Right up until I saw those I had myself convinced that it would be worth going to ski the "slippery snow."  I called my buddy at 6:30AM and called it off.


My pain - your gain. You're welcome.

author=Andrew Carey link=topic=30085.msg126035#msg126035 date=1387817618]
LOL.  Typical conscessionaire fare.  The only good concessionaire food I've had was at Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge; they had quite a chef there for a while, at least.  The food at the High Camp Lodge at White Pass is sometimes not bad. The food at Paradise Lodge, the couple of times I've eaten there was marginal as was the food at the Crescent Lake Lodge in Olympic NP--and for breakast I couldn't get eggs sunnyside up because that was against the park's rules.  ::)


Amazing variations in Park foods. But for sheer screw jobs you can't usually beat Rainier. Last summer I spent $15 for a beautiful campsite near Longmire, and then drove over to the store to pick up a six pack of beer. It was $16 something for Budweiser!

author=BrianT link=topic=30085.msg126031#msg126031 date=1387812911]
You were able to teleport to the future and ski! We gotta hook up, I need to learn how to do this to see future park closures!

author=n16ht5 link=topic=30085.msg126032#msg126032 date=1387813609]
ah crap what day is it???  ??? ???


Avajane, these two were trying to point out that the listed date is wrong, but apparently they were too subtle. You can edit the original post's date to December 22 using the same "modify" function which you used to edit the post, although you'll need to reattach the attached images.

Thanks for the conditions report.


author=Amar Andalkar link=topic=30085.msg126062#msg126062 date=1387869468]
Avajane, these two were trying to point out that the listed date is wrong, but apparently they were too subtle. You can edit the original post's date to December 22 using the same "modify" function which you used to edit the post, although you'll need to reattach the attached images.

Thanks for the conditions report.



Not too subtle - didn't know I could change the date. Thanks for the info - now I know. Too late to change the post now for it to do any good.

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2013-12-22 23:23:56