Home > Trip Reports > 18-21 December: WA Sampler (PHOTOS ADDED)

18-21 December: WA Sampler (PHOTOS ADDED)

12/18/16
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Posted by dave095790 on 12/21/16 4:07pm
After spending a week on Mount Rainier, Alex and I continued our quest of epic turns. 

Sunday 18 December - Chair Circumnav

We got a pretty late start after hitting the snooze button about 4 times, followed by a group meeting to delay another hour.  Needless to say, we got started later than we wanted.  Then, we followed the wrong skin track to Source Lake, i.e. the slowshoe track to Source Lake. 

After following the horrid disaster of an actual skin track we finally make the col near the NE Buttress of Chair, noticing that we were the only people who had been there in quite some time.  We make fast turns down to the next lake, where we intermingled with some other groups.  We were on a fast pace so we passed them, and proceeded in solitude all the way back to Source Lake.  The couloir from Byrant was out-of-this-world cool. 

We wanted just a little more vert, so we beat ourselves up and headed to the Pineapple Pass Col, or Great Scott Bowl Col, or whatever it is called, near Das Toof. 

We chatted with two chill dudes and then zipped back to the car.

About 6700 vert. 


Monday 19 December - EPIC (fail)

We got up late, as usual.  We went to safeway and bought some food to head back up to Paradise where we might escape the high freezing levels and rain. 

After stocking up, we checked the Twitter Feed to see that the gate would not open today ...

... so back to the apartment for a well-earned rest day. 

A rest day, with some beer and Fireball.  And some Valley Uprising.  And some gear fondling. 

Tuesday 20 December - Enchantments

We thought this might be a good plan for the high volume snow day.  We arrived at the TH in the dark with rain ... so we took a nap, then a longer nap, until the plow trucks showed up and there was at least some light. 

Nothing worse than skinning in the dark, in the rain. 

We made slow work up 8-mile road, and even slower work to Colchuck Lake, constantly pondering how much the ski out would suck, but the goods would be worth it. 

Well, the goods were not worth it.  The Colchuck Lake environs need at least a couple more weeks.  We saw lots of non-snow items sprinkled throughout the snowpack. 

We spend about 3 minutes on the sketchily-frozen lake to come to that conclusion. 

We skied back down for about 30 minutes, then pounded half the Fireball we had brought.

We raced to the TH, one with skins and one without.  It was, as expected in the those conditions, a pretty close battle.  The skin-less won, barely. 

Wednesday 21 December - Heather Meadows and the Table Circumnav

After the disaster of the East Side, we knew we needed to go high and we set our sights on Heather Meadows.  We arrived late at night and found a secluded spot to nap until the morning. 

After, you guessed it, some more alarm snoozing, we finally got going in time for an 8-ish AM departure. 

We assessed the snow conditions and found them to be quite bomber. 

We did two laps in the Mount Herman zone before finishing the Fireball and then heading up and over the Herman-Table Col.  Finding more good snow we kept working around CCW adding two more laps. 

We then dropped into the Swift Creek Drainage, finding more good snow.  Unfortunately exiting the Roush was quite horrendous until things leveled out to a more realistic angle. 

We made it back to the car with about 45 minutes of sunlight left. 

About 6500 vert. 

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18-21-december-wa-sampler-photos-added
dave095790
2016-12-22 00:07:18