TurnsAllYear

Paul and I went up there yesterday (10/31). Not worth it unless you needed to get some October turns, which we did, so I guess it was worth it to us. Most of the little bit of new had blown off of the old snow, but we found a reasonable (short) strip of new to ski. I'll try to insert a photo here, but more action shots coming Monday (11/4) on my home page (http://www.turns-all-year.com/index.html) Charles

Sorry, that whould be http://www.turns-all-year.com/index.html (I'm tired!) Charles

I went up to Paradise today (Friday). I intended to get this info up earlier so it could be used for tomorrow, but I crashed upon return home. We could have skinned from the parking lot (coverage-wise), but chose to hike because the snow was frozen solid and packed on the paths (strange - telemetry said low at Paradise was 40, after a 54 degree day, and it was already feeling warm at 8:30 am). The snow on the Muir was mostly smooth ice - maybe it had rained up there previously. We stopped climbing at about 11am at 9K when it became apparent that the abundant sunshine was not going to be able to soften the snow/ice surface. The first 1000vf of skiing were mostly on the smooth icy surface. Below about 8K, however, we began to find great, spring-like corn snow where ever the slope was tilted toward the sun. The highlight of the day came when we dropped off the ridge just above Pan Point and skied down the SE facing slopes, where the surface snow had loosened in the sun. There was 1-3 inches of silky corn on a firm base. We did another run there, then dropped into Edith Basin near the Golden Gate trail. This required a couple of steps across bare grass at one point, but otherwise it was skiable all the way to the asphalt trail at the bridge over Edith Creek. The trail back to the parking lot had compact snow, and we skied it without injuring our ski bases. I will get photos from this trip posted by Sunday at http:www.turns-all-year.com/index.htmlCharles

Readers who are users of the NOAA - NW Avalanche Center telemetry data pages for Washington and Oregon for checking out mountain conditions might want to look at the way I have organized access to the current and archived NWAC telemetry pages on my web site. If you go to http://www.turns-all-year.com/wealinksfr.html and then click on "NWAC Telemetry" in the left menu, you will see a new menu with links for every current data page, with submenus for the 10 day archives for each location. Clicking on any link will cause the appropriate NWAC data page to display in the main window of the web page, without changing the menu and forcing you to use the back button to regain the menu. This organization lets you browse many telemetry locations quickly to determine what has been going on in the mountains and plan your trip. The inadequate navigation scheme which the NWAC provides for their telemetry pages is actually what got me started constructing my web site. I see posts asking about snow/skiing/boarding conditions in the Cascades. There is an active trip reports section on my web site where you might find answers to such questions. You can view the trip reports here: www.turns-all-year.com/tripreportfr.html I hope some folks find these links useful. Charles

We skied parking lot to parking lot 2 weeks ago (returning off of Mazama Ridge), and I think the trip reports have been suggesting the same is still possible. Charles

I am pretty sure that temp is correct. The FL was supposed to be going up to about 10K by today and for tomorrow. I noticed that Tuesday night it got cold up there (with low forecast FL) - low 20s - but last night (Wednesday) it actually got warmer as the night progressed. I am probably going to go up toward Muir for skiing tomorrow and think that I may find the previously frozen/crusty areas to have softened = good skiing. Maybe even like spring skiing...at least I hope. Charles