May 21, 2006, Paradise Glacier via McClure Rock

Ron, Jeanette, Darryl and myself met at the Nisqually Bridge at 8 AM intending to go to Dream Bowl on the west side of the Nisqually Glacier Valley.  We were dissuaded by the amazing decrease in snow and corresponding increase in scree and waterfall volumes along the route. 

As an alternative we drove to Paradise and headed up Edith Basin, most of us dressed in our summer best, expecting a warm if not outright hot day.  Suncreen aplenty, and we were off.  8) Up to Golden Gate and up passed McClure rock.  The clouds began to gather as we climbed, which made it a perfect temperature, not too hot.  The snow was good, just soft enough to get a ski into without a lot of sloughing as we crossed slopes.

We went around McClure Rock and onto the Paradise Glacier about the time the clouds decided to dump.  There were no open crevasses on the Paradise.  :)  It was raining heavily as we skiing down to the bottom of the upper moraine valley.  We decided to head back toward the parking lot about then.  On the way back we passed a huge cornice failure off of the east facing slopes of moraine at about 6600 ft.  The failure didn't produce any type of step down or climax avalanche, suggesting the snow is well consolidated here.  The Paradise River is open enough that you could disappear forever if you fell in. 

We headed back to Golden Gate by going down to about 6200 to cross since the higher crossing at 6400 was exposed to glide cracks on the slope route.  We had a sweet run down Golden Gate face before returning to the parking lot and heading for drier territory.