Mt. Adams, SW chutes, May 6
5/6/16
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3517
2
Road was clear to Morrison Creek campground (~4700ft). You'll probably be able to push another quarter mile up the road by next weekend, but it will be a few weeks before it will be possible to get all the way to Cold Springs.
We put on skins around 5500 ft and had a pleasant, albeit windy, skin to false summit with no booting. Descended the SW chutes at 2pm, which was a little late. South climb stayed firmer due to the wind, but the chutes were in the lee and were getting cooked. The top third to half skied great, but there was enough sluffing on the lower third to make me a little nervous. Nothing fast, propagating or deeper than a few inches though.
We traversed immediately at the bottom of the chutes and made it back Cold Springs without putting on skins.
All in all, about 10 hours RT.
We put on skins around 5500 ft and had a pleasant, albeit windy, skin to false summit with no booting. Descended the SW chutes at 2pm, which was a little late. South climb stayed firmer due to the wind, but the chutes were in the lee and were getting cooked. The top third to half skied great, but there was enough sluffing on the lower third to make me a little nervous. Nothing fast, propagating or deeper than a few inches though.
We traversed immediately at the bottom of the chutes and made it back Cold Springs without putting on skins.
All in all, about 10 hours RT.
thanks for the update.
The ranger station said the road was still snowed in at least 4.5 miles from Morrison Creek just last Thursday. I don't think they really have any idea.
The ranger station said the road was still snowed in at least 4.5 miles from Morrison Creek just last Thursday. I don't think they really have any idea.
We need to find a way to harvest these trip reports and / or create an app that shows progress up-road as a function of date. How hard can that possibly be? It would just have to be a marker on a map.
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