November 23, 2007, Crystal Mt. (Avalanche Basin)
11/23/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2148
1
Jeff Rich and I climbed up into Campbell Basin under warm sunny skies (cold in the shade). Not as much snow as we had hoped from reading other TRs, but we carried on up to the ridge line for a view of Rainier.
We were going to traverse over to The King, but icing skins made it a pain for me so we stopped on The Throne for lunch and skied a gully down into Avalanche Basin. We both hit a few rocks up high, but the lower slope was pretty good. The low angled runs back to the base were better, especially if we stayed on the north side where they were in the shade all day. I didn't hit a rock all the way down. The area needs a heavy dump before they can open anything.
We were going to traverse over to The King, but icing skins made it a pain for me so we stopped on The Throne for lunch and skied a gully down into Avalanche Basin. We both hit a few rocks up high, but the lower slope was pretty good. The low angled runs back to the base were better, especially if we stayed on the north side where they were in the shade all day. I didn't hit a rock all the way down. The area needs a heavy dump before they can open anything.
My brother and I there on lift serve side Crystal 23rd also. Went up via Deer Fly / Iceberg. Also went over to see the new Northway lift top. A lot of different aspects were crusty in one way or another. The chutes right of Northway Pk in particular which you'd think would be immune to both sun and wind had some unpleasant windslab. Better skiing was found in Green Valley particularly north facing edge. But a lot of the elevation gained to ski here was pretty much wasted on way down. Based on Iceberg looking thin we decided to descent via Kellys Gap and there you had to stay on the road to have any snow and even then rocks were encountered. A definite rock ski day, one where I took enough hits that it might be time to shop for some 'new' rock skis. Between prev reports and cams I had the impression there was more snow than there was. Well there ain't much snow.
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