April 09, 2018, Mt Rainier, Paradise Glacier
4/9/18
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2327
3
Arrived at 8:45 to Longmire after reading the twitter report 20mins earlier that the road was closed until 11am. What a bummer, wish there was some way to find this out around 6-7am so that folks that are making a day out of this can plan accordingly.
None-the-less, it was a beautiful day on the mountain with heavy schmoo observed right out of the car park. Seems 20" new snow doesn't like an instantaneous warm up. Above Pan Pt this was firmer and windblown which made travel easy and would have been OK to ski also. We were the only ones on Muir on a lovely sunny Monday, go figure! We opted for Paradise glacier for a slightly better aspect and found what felt like corn snow but of course wasn't. Lovely turns down to the Cowlitz corner where it transitioned to major schmoo on the lower runout to Skyline trail environs.
We determined while apres skiing that the super friendly and awesome park ranger has the best job, hope your made your BBQ and great to talk with you.
Photos on phone, not great but it was sunny and Rainier looked like Rainier and everything was covered in snow.
None-the-less, it was a beautiful day on the mountain with heavy schmoo observed right out of the car park. Seems 20" new snow doesn't like an instantaneous warm up. Above Pan Pt this was firmer and windblown which made travel easy and would have been OK to ski also. We were the only ones on Muir on a lovely sunny Monday, go figure! We opted for Paradise glacier for a slightly better aspect and found what felt like corn snow but of course wasn't. Lovely turns down to the Cowlitz corner where it transitioned to major schmoo on the lower runout to Skyline trail environs.
We determined while apres skiing that the super friendly and awesome park ranger has the best job, hope your made your BBQ and great to talk with you.
Photos on phone, not great but it was sunny and Rainier looked like Rainier and everything was covered in snow.
Thanks for the report, I am happy with my bike ride call.
Heroic effort on your part given the late gate opening and the cement conditions.
We opted for some west facing closer in . Kinda funny skiing ,the cement had thickened to a point our fat skis stayed on top. But dont make a mistake ! The crew that went over Mazama ridge mite have found some snow untouched by the sun on the North aspects.
I agree with you on gate notices. It's usually up on twitter by 7am give or take.
We opted for some west facing closer in . Kinda funny skiing ,the cement had thickened to a point our fat skis stayed on top. But dont make a mistake ! The crew that went over Mazama ridge mite have found some snow untouched by the sun on the North aspects.
I agree with you on gate notices. It's usually up on twitter by 7am give or take.
The group who did the North facing mazama ridge said they had decent turns, the looked pretty good from our vantage on Skyline but the elevation is very low for the high temps. Paradise turns were really fun and I've not skied it before so very enjoyable to get somewhere new for me. Probably could have made Muir but we opted to spend the additional hour before gate closure enjoying apres ski refreshments with feet up looking at the mountain and there was nothing wrong with that!
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