February 8, 2015, Paradise
2/8/15
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3761
2
After staring at forecasts and models all week, a gaggle of WAC skiers risked both the gate and the rain to poke around Paradise. The sometimes-modeled weather window opened wider than we had hoped, with blue skies and sun in the morning, dry all day, and rain the moment we touched the cars at 3 pm. It hadn't occurred to any of us to look at the cloud models, so focused we were on avoiding liquid precipitation.
Snowpack was 1-3" of schmooey new atop a soft and friendly wet crust, icy above Pan Point. Skied well all day, getting heavier with sun and warming. Pinwheels and point releases were prominent on solar aspects. Saw one ~6-12" windslab crown beneath an east-facing cornice near Golden Gate. We kept our slope angles low; nothing moved for us. Friends digging pits reported clean repeatable shovel shears below Pan Face on a wet layer 12" down that was unreactive to compression tests.
Thanks, weather gods and touring partners, especially Brian, Erik, Josh, and Sahar, for a fun day!
Snowpack was 1-3" of schmooey new atop a soft and friendly wet crust, icy above Pan Point. Skied well all day, getting heavier with sun and warming. Pinwheels and point releases were prominent on solar aspects. Saw one ~6-12" windslab crown beneath an east-facing cornice near Golden Gate. We kept our slope angles low; nothing moved for us. Friends digging pits reported clean repeatable shovel shears below Pan Face on a wet layer 12" down that was unreactive to compression tests.
Thanks, weather gods and touring partners, especially Brian, Erik, Josh, and Sahar, for a fun day!
It was a great day out - classic "low expectations" exceeded by decent skiing type of day... Nice to catch a break from the weather crunching for once... though it was still far too warm :/
thanks for the low down Charlie!
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