Home > Trip Reports > March 22, 2015, Paradise/Mazama Ridge

March 22, 2015, Paradise/Mazama Ridge

3/22/15
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
8690
17
Posted by avajane on 3/22/15 9:22am
1 - 3" new over supportive crust. Low visibility and snow kept us to treeline and below. I'd like to hear if anyone got much higher. For this season - a 3 - 4 star day! Heavy snow in parking lot at 230 when we left.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10205410184351735&l=8213549960197507583

Proof of minor powder down low

My first time in back bowls on I guess NE to E side of upper Mazama ridge.  Really great!  I also did not feel invited to go above Panorama Point in the incipient white-out.

author=dkoelle link=topic=33965.msg140256#msg140256 date=1427079936]
My first time in back bowls on I guess NE to E side of upper Mazama ridge.  Really great!  I also did not feel invited to go above Panorama Point in the incipient white-out.


Cool. I'm not familiar with the back bowls either, but I'd guess that there was probably some more wind blown snow over there. Did you climb back out or ski down and over to the road?

Same story here.






On a side not.....
Just a few minutes out of the parkinglot and right before the bridge over the creek, we spied a nice fresh slope above us and decided to ski it as the visibility was good. We skinned up about halfway to the top of this little knoll, and  were stopped in our tracks by what we now saw as the upper slope. The fresh snow had been utterly destroyed by what must have been dozens of snowshoers in a training exercise designed to piss off skiers and riders. They had gone up and down side by side  about 200 yards wide. We turned around to ski the now very short descent passing another group walking side by side.

I'm sure that the individual group members don't think about what they are doing, but the leader certainly has too. Why can't they stay in tighter formations? I don't believe that there is greater enjoyment in stomping up fresh snow compared to already stepped on snow.

I'm sorry, but that is a remarkably childish thing to say.  And thank you for your trip report!

I only see one poster name calling here which is quite possibly the definition of childish......

Settle down now y'all.

Jane, would you rather have encountered trampled slopes elsewhere? I consider the instructors courteous for keeping their groups close to the parking lot.

Not the biggest deal in the world of backcountry skiing and Norseman is probably right that close in is better than way out there - but I do have a point here and it's not childish. At nordic ski areas they have a skating lane, a trad track, and a separate trail altogether for snow shoeing. Near  snowmobile land they often put in nordic trails that they "try" to keep separate. When there are user groups whose users conflict with each other - and they are all in the same place, on the same day, in a low snow year...I wish I had gotten a good picture of what I'm talking about.

Maybe is was snow compaction for avalanche mitigation? :D

Perhaps compaction for a horizontal sidehill slalom snowshoe race.

We skied Mazama today with some nice fresh snow--but not nearly enough to cover the frozen ski trenches (made in later afteroon soft snow), deep post-holing cattle tracks, 10 feet wide, looking like a roto-tilled garden, ski and snowshoe uptracks, and the full variety of other disturbances like "practice" snow pits in the most inappropriate places (not indicative of anything but a big surprise to a fast moving skier), shoveled out tent pads, and maybe camp kitchens.  The whole place was a mess.

It boils down to one thing: too many people seeking to enjoy the snow. Conditions have been the worst/most crowded this year due to little snow down low, markedly less opportunity at lift-served ski areas and at groomed XC areas; lots of publicity around hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing in the local papers; large increases in the number of organized tours by retailers, guides, and the park itself.

It just plain over-population.

As far as courtesy, ethics, norms, consideration and all other aspects of civli society and rules and signage as well--they don't work anymore!  That is a fact.  I am on ski patrol at the Mt. Tahoma Trails association just outside the park, and despite sign, pleading, begging, remonstrating--everyone does exactly what they want to including walking 6 abreast on newly groomed trails they are asked to stay to the far side of which.

A bc skier has a choice: get upset or live and let live.  I learned my lesson long ago--found I couldn't educate a nation that didn't want my opinion LOL and my aggravation was hurting me more than anyone else.

So:  All snow is good snow; all skis are rocks skis; stout fat skis don't even see snowshoe tracks; the faster you ski, the less you see!


author=Andrew Carey link=topic=33965.msg140282#msg140282 date=1427157711]
We skied Mazama today with some nice fresh snow--but not nearly enough to cover the frozen ski trenches (made in later afteroon soft snow), deep post-holing cattle tracks, 10 feet wide, looking like a roto-tilled garden, ski and snowshoe uptracks, and the full variety of other disturbances like "practice" snow pits in the most inappropriate places (not indicative of anything but a big surprise to a fast moving skier), shoveled out tent pads, and maybe camp kitchens.  The whole place was a mess.

It boils down to one thing: too many people seeking to enjoy the snow. Conditions have been the worst/most crowded this year due to little snow down low, markedly less opportunity at lift-served ski areas and at groomed XC areas; lots of publicity around hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing in the local papers; large increases in the number of organized tours by retailers, guides, and the park itself.

It just plain over-population.



As far as courtesy, ethics, norms, consideration and all other aspects of civli society and rules and signage as well--they don't work anymore!  That is a fact.  I am on ski patrol at the Mt. Tahoma Trails association just outside the park, and despite sign, pleading, begging, remonstrating--everyone does exactly what they want to including walking 6 abreast on newly groomed trails they are asked to stay to the far side of which.

A bc skier has a choice: get upset or live and let live.  I learned my lesson long ago--found I couldn't educate a nation that didn't want my opinion LOL and my aggravation was hurting me more than anyone else.

So:  All snow is good snow; all skis are rocks skis; stout fat skis don't even see snowshoe tracks; the faster you ski, the less you see!


Love the reply especially the "faster you ski, the less you see" I have seen your complaining posts over the years and you do put up a good fight! If you have given up on this - I will too. At the moment I crested that knoll and saw that gridwork of tracks, I'm about certain that everyone here (except the guy who called me childish) would have cursed about the same thing..."What the......"  "Why did they do that."

I would have been guilty of the same indignation.  This rather cheery discussion catches my mind another way somehow.  Here we are affected by this low snow year and fewer places for ever more people to go play in our beloved untouched snow.  Makes me grateful I'm not a Californian hotly debating water usage rights as this summer's fire season approaches.  We will enjoy relative normalcy next year sans persistent upper ridge, but this may be the year that brings that state to implosion.

author=avajane link=topic=33965.msg140258#msg140258 date=1427084590]
Cool. I'm not familiar with the back bowls either, but I'd guess that there was probably some more wind blown snow over there. Did you climb back out or ski down and over to the road?


Almost everyone climbs back out over Mazama Ridge. Skiing "...down and over to the road" from the Mazama 'Back Bowl' takes an exceptional snowpack. To follow Stevens Ck. down to the Stevens Canyon Road several miles east of Reflection Lake, one must cross several large avy paths and climb high above the creek on the E side to avoid merging gorges.

Mazama Ridge today:


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