Home > Trip Reports > November 3, 2002, Palmer Gl. Bottom Feeding

November 3, 2002, Palmer Gl. Bottom Feeding

11/3/02
4202
4
Posted by ron j on 11/3/02 10:01pm
It's clearly getting down to scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of finding places to ski in the southern Washington Cascades. Charles' report on Muir conditions was dismal and Robie's on Northside Rainier conditions was even worse.
In hopes of getting Ullar to cut loose some of that magic powder, Mad Dog and I thought we would just go ahead and get our November ski in right away in these dismal conditions. That way we might then propagate some new snow for the rest of you.
With the experience of skiing the Palmer 2 weeks ago behind us, we virtually "broke the code" on lift skiing the Palmer in low snow conditions. We used our rando gear so the trail walking was much more palatable. In addition, we blazed a new trail down to the glacier in soft dirt, so the down climb from the lift was almost like a walk in the park. We kept saying all day, "Boy, Robie's gonna be pissed that he missed this. Let's hope we get some new snow to ski on this month which will help assuage the pain for him." I really do hate to show you the pictures...
Well, here's one:

The rest of them are at:
http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/bottomfeederskiing11302.msnw
But don't tell Robie about them.
You'd never guess from looking at the pics, but believe it or not we did not wear beepers or carry shovels.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, what a great spring day for November.  Wonder where to next for December, isn't New Zeland heading into spring now to?   8)

Hate to say this, but the skiing was even better than the pictures showed.  One of those, you had to be there to believe it trips   ;D

I'm "                                  "*











*speechless

I finally got a chance to look at all of your photos, Ron. Great photo essay on the approach - I got a good idea what it is really like up there right now. Those photos from the first chair make it look like there isn't really any skiing to be had up there, and the photos of the luge run are hard to believe. Do they keep pushing snow down that little gulley with the groomers to keep it filled? But you obviously got a LOT of turns in, and the spring conditions looked great. Thanks for the photos.

... and the photos of the luge run are hard to believe. Do they keep pushing snow down that little gulley with the groomers to keep it filled?

Yep.
That's exactly what they do.  In fact they park the snow cat in the ditch at the bottom of of the "pushed down" snow after its done grooming.

Reply to this TR

761
november-3-2002-palmer-gl-bottom-feeding
ron j
2002-11-04 06:01:57