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April 21, 2017, Muir area obs

4/21/17
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
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Posted by tabski on 4/22/17 4:26am
Skied Paradise Glacier this beautifully sunny Friday with around 100 like-minded skiers, snowshoers and hikers. Sunny, ~6,000' freezing level, moderate E-SE winds. ~6" of new snow from the previous few days skied nicely, becoming more wind affected as day progressed. Wind exposed S through E aspects had been scoured to a crust.

Glaciers are very well filled in, but minor snow accumulation combined with extensive wind transport made identifying holes and crevasses difficult.

There is serious potential for massive cornice collapses across the state and Rainier is no exception. We observed very impressive debris from the western headwall of Paradise Glacier, with many more ticking time bombs out there on wind exposed ridges.

Lack of snowpack consolidation means high potential for large and destructive wet slides at lower elevations - heard reports that a police truck on patrol on the road to Paradise was hit by one and seriously damaged, resulting in temporary closure of Paradise Road! Hope everyone is ok.

Now if the sun would just come out again this month :-(
Thanks for the report and info Drew!

so that's where everybody was... a magnetic pull commensurate to its mass

Good on you pointing the continuing dangers this winter is still holding on to. We have to be conservative.

Good to see you guys up there. Agree with obs. There are some big ass wind features hanging around!








I was driving down and saw the park ranger truck, I must have gotten there shortly after it happened. A small wet snow avalanche slide down and landed on the roof of the SUV caving in the roof and blowing on the windshield. It would have made a great picture but I couldn't stop to take it.

It was an fund day out. It got pretty windy at times but it kept the temperatures down so the snow did not get too mushy until down low.

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2017-04-22 11:26:20