June 11, 2006, Pebble Creek area ,Paradise

We had spent the past 5 days in sunny eastern WA riding our mountain bikes and drying out.  On Saturday we had a leisurely ride along the Tieton River and then crossed White Pass.  Within 2 miles it was raining on the west side. :'(  Drove towards Ashford and found sunshine and saw "the mountain".  It was a cool and clear night and we were confident a hard freeze would form at Paradise.  We arrived at Paradise around 7:30am and found a parking spot in the crowded lot.  The skin from the parking lot was on a frozen surface that slightly softened as we approached the main climbing route up Pan Face.  We traversed climbers left towards the saddle and the descent to Nisqually Glacier.  The Nisqually Chutes were sunbaked and a significant debris line was apparent.  It was obvious that the chutes have good coverage, but you would have to skirt the slide path in the upper quarter before traversing skier left.  The trail was still frozen and we saddled the skis and climbed to the ridge and the trail coming in from Pan Face.  Once at the ridge top, we had the slopes to ourselves as the masses passed above us on their way towards Pebble Creek.  We had clear views of the Nisqually and Kautz and could see the serpentine track up towards the Kautz Icefall. 

The Northwest Face that we skied is only 800 vertical, but it was smooooooth - no suncups. Plus the surface was firm and we had a carveable surface top to bottom.  A pleasant treat after some of the slush many of us have experienced.  As we neared the bottom of the face, I noticed a single skier traversing the bottom of the Nisqually and heading our way.  We excanged some skier friendlies and I asked what route he skied -  "Kautz Headwall"  :)  As Jill and I stopped to put on the skins, the young skier did a climbing traverse and disappeared over the ridge. We only had tme for one run but  that Northwest Face was perfect. The ski descent back to Paradise was soft and slow.  As we departed Paradise at noon, the clouds were collecting near the summit and when we reached Graham the mountain was hidden in thunder clouds.

After reading Sam's report from this weekend's traverse and Sky's comment,  I assume that lone skier was Sky.  Sky, we're looking forward to your trip report and photos.

Zap & Jill