Nov 25 Crystal Back country
11/15/06
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3434
4
Wife & I haded toward Bear Pit at 900 met up with 3 guys breaking trail. Veered west and gained the ridge about noon. Several tracks already down E Peak with another 15 or so by the end of the day. Of note was the sun affected direct south slopes we skied. These are done. On the way back up slight crust was forming in the shadows passing over the warmed snow. E Peak skiers may have encountered same. Ridge top, flats & all other aspects remained dry, light and deep. Its been a long time since I have seen this valley in bright sun with so much snow that fell with so little wind for so many days. Truely striking, like an alpine village with snow laden trees all the way to the low lands. Views like this are every bit as inspiring as the great skiing I get on the way back to the care. I saw a couple hundred foot, 1-2 foot crown on the north side of Silver Basin set off by Patrol bombs. Other than that I saw no slide activity either at the resort on Friday or on my BC trip on this day. It was more stable than I would have expected..... but that was then and now is now. With all this new snow caution is advisable.
I heard of a burial slide in the Norse Peak/Bullion Basin area on Saturday (happy ending!)....Check in w/ Crystal Patrol prior to going out folks regarding recent activity they area a good resource...Be safe out there.
Chris
Chris
From all the accounts I heard no one was seriously hurt and all were able to either ski or walk out. Which was confirmed as we passed them. There will be a more detailed account on my trip report from that bluebird bottomless day.
I personally witnesseed two slides in Silver basin on Sat 25th. The crown you saw in Silver was not set of by patrol bombs but by skiers.
I was in the first group to ski the South Back when they dropped the Throne rope. I reached the bottom and was talking to two patrollers when a skier set of a slab. He managed to ski out of it. :DNext trip around, a snowboarder below me set of another slab and got taken for a ride. I skied down onto the bed surface which was the rain crust formed last week. The crown was texbook , absolutely vertical . Both the slides that I saw happend below two rock outcrops and spread about 100' across, leaving a corrdior of untracked in the middle. It was pretty Western there for a while.
On talking to Patrol later they said they knew it would be a bit dicey and had set up spotters in the basin and had avy dogs at the top of the King.The said the only way to really make the South Back safe was to get it skied. Mission acomplished. There was also slides on the Avy basin side of the King.
Glad everybody was OK.
I was in the first group to ski the South Back when they dropped the Throne rope. I reached the bottom and was talking to two patrollers when a skier set of a slab. He managed to ski out of it. :DNext trip around, a snowboarder below me set of another slab and got taken for a ride. I skied down onto the bed surface which was the rain crust formed last week. The crown was texbook , absolutely vertical . Both the slides that I saw happend below two rock outcrops and spread about 100' across, leaving a corrdior of untracked in the middle. It was pretty Western there for a while.
On talking to Patrol later they said they knew it would be a bit dicey and had set up spotters in the basin and had avy dogs at the top of the King.The said the only way to really make the South Back safe was to get it skied. Mission acomplished. There was also slides on the Avy basin side of the King.
Glad everybody was OK.
Probably most realized this but I mistated my initial destination instead of Bear Pit, it should have read Bear Gap. Anyway the essential points I wanted to make were that despite the low temps of that day the sun did affect the south slopes, and that there was some significate slide activity on Silver Basin. Glad everyone is ok.
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