April 20, Paradise, sweet wet powder (avalanches)
4/15/08
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3473
2
We skinned from the Paradise parking lot up towards Edith's Rib around noon. There was heavy snow off and on all day and significant warming with the sun coming through the clouds (we both got unexpected sun burns). We noticed that a wet layer was forming so we avoided terrain traps and steeper slopes.
We skied down south facing bowls towards a skin track heading up to Mazama ridge. On the last slope before the skin track, I set off a 6-8 inch wet slab while making a turn near the top of the slope. It moved very slowly and I was easily able to ski a short distance to the side and watch it slide. It was about 15 feet wide and slid for about 100 feet. It was a little concerning, but not entirely unexpected based on what we had observed.
We proceeded up Mazama Ridge and made 3 runs down the west slopes. We stuck to slightly lower angle slopes with awesome wet powder and didn't experience any more instability. On the steeper slopes just north of where we came down off the ridge, we saw the debris from a fairly large slough. Judging from all of the tracks, it looks like it was likely triggered by a skier.
If anybody saw that slide, I'd be curious to hear what happened.
We skied down south facing bowls towards a skin track heading up to Mazama ridge. On the last slope before the skin track, I set off a 6-8 inch wet slab while making a turn near the top of the slope. It moved very slowly and I was easily able to ski a short distance to the side and watch it slide. It was about 15 feet wide and slid for about 100 feet. It was a little concerning, but not entirely unexpected based on what we had observed.
We proceeded up Mazama Ridge and made 3 runs down the west slopes. We stuck to slightly lower angle slopes with awesome wet powder and didn't experience any more instability. On the steeper slopes just north of where we came down off the ridge, we saw the debris from a fairly large slough. Judging from all of the tracks, it looks like it was likely triggered by a skier.
If anybody saw that slide, I'd be curious to hear what happened.
I'm pretty sure we're talking about the same slope/slide. I "kind of" watched the the slide that reached down to the paradise valley road. We were in the process of skinning up to take a look at that slope and watched two skiers come in from above through the trees. They were just over a bump so all I saw was a bobbing head as the first skier started down hill. He was shortly followed by a large pile of slowly rotating debris moving along just a little slower than he was.
We finished working our way over the bump listening for any sign of trouble from the two but he was able to get out of the slide path. His wife was a little spooked but skied down to her Husband at skiers left of the slide while we watched on.
Once she was down safe and sound we backtracked to a lower angle slope for some more sweet powder turns to the valley road. Chatted briefly to find out that he didn't even know that the slide was behind him while he was skiing and glanced back at the bottom of the run and then quickly scooted out of the path. Yikes.
The slide was late in the afternoon (maybe around 4:00PM) with solar cooking the slopes all day. Like I said, it slid pretty slow, but it did pile up pretty deep at the bottom of the slope. Definitely enough to cause some trouble if he had stopped sooner or had fallen.
Moral of the story, watch out for beautiful moderately steep powder slopes baking in the afternoon spring sun. Not really a revelation I know but I'm having trouble convincing myself that it's spring. Especially with the Winter weather we keep getting.
We also saw another sluff/maybe wet slab set off by two skiers towards the base of Edith Rib while we were eating lunch around 1:00PM. Not many details about that one, we were pretty far off with poor visibility.
We finished working our way over the bump listening for any sign of trouble from the two but he was able to get out of the slide path. His wife was a little spooked but skied down to her Husband at skiers left of the slide while we watched on.
Once she was down safe and sound we backtracked to a lower angle slope for some more sweet powder turns to the valley road. Chatted briefly to find out that he didn't even know that the slide was behind him while he was skiing and glanced back at the bottom of the run and then quickly scooted out of the path. Yikes.
The slide was late in the afternoon (maybe around 4:00PM) with solar cooking the slopes all day. Like I said, it slid pretty slow, but it did pile up pretty deep at the bottom of the slope. Definitely enough to cause some trouble if he had stopped sooner or had fallen.
Moral of the story, watch out for beautiful moderately steep powder slopes baking in the afternoon spring sun. Not really a revelation I know but I'm having trouble convincing myself that it's spring. Especially with the Winter weather we keep getting.
We also saw another sluff/maybe wet slab set off by two skiers towards the base of Edith Rib while we were eating lunch around 1:00PM. Not many details about that one, we were pretty far off with poor visibility.
Went up to paradise yesterday; they're plowing the Paradise Valley Road, down to 4th crossing now. Snow was highly variable; lots of crust, sometimes just below an inch or two of powder. That left most slope above the road (looking up, to the left of the slide) was windblown breakable crust; we went to the N slopes in the back bowl expecting powder & safe conditions; I was doing pole probing as I started up, felt the crust under 12 inches of powder and the pole tip cut in it; dug an arm pit, grabbed some crust, and it was moist to wet, about 2 inches, with sugary snow several inches or more beneath it! I can't imagine this slope got much sun that a.m., it was pretty overcast and it faces N, but I guess it must have gotten its share of long wave; we turned around and explored several low angle slopes all with PITA variable, crusty conditions.
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