June 17, 2003, Tatoosh, MRNP

With the hot weather Monday and today, we had soft snow even though we left the car at 8:30 to skin up to the Castle Saddle. Had planned to ski Foss Peak, but Gary V. the snow and avalanche expert, nixed that idea, stating that the west facing slopes would be prone to slides today. It WAS hot, even up at the saddle. Much to our surpise, there was hardly any melt-out on the south side yet. We saw your ski tracks, Mad Dog and company, you had the better day. I'm glad you made that choice :D

The skiing was good high up on the steep slopes, especially right underneath the rock of Castle, though runnels and sun cups present. Lower down, the sun cups were much deeper and the runnels more pronounced, but all in all a good run, with some tricky skiing on narrow snow between deep tree wells. The rushing creek could be clearly heard underneath the snow.

Since we got back much earlier than planned, drove up to Paradise to check out snow conditions. The trail up Mazama Ridge  from the lower parking lot is still completely snow covered, though from up at the Castle Saddle we could see that the top of the ridge was melted out. Coverage to Cowlitz Rocks looked good.