philfort

huh - I have video of your party leading that thing on Sunday - assuming you were a party of three. Guy with the puke green helmet was on the ground, and a guy with blue pants and red gaitors was on lead. I think the skiing must have been 1000 times better than the ice (not that the ice was bad...)

Driving up to the pass yesterday afternoon, the long waterfall in those bluffs on the north side of the highway, just past exit 38, looked phat. It was running water on Sunday. Warning: phatness may have been exaggerated by the whiteout conditions, limiting visibility.

So he was lost, but mobile... and in 4 days he couldn't get back to the highway!??? The thread on ttips said he was found at Tuscohatchie Lake, although I haven't seen that in any of the news reports.

There had been minimal snow (judging from the telemetry - couple inches a day) since the previous weekend, when we skied on Heather ridge in stable conditions. Anyway, my main point is that I think these were pretty tricky conditions, perhaps conducive to luring folks to places they shouldn't be. Sure, people should have realized as they were heading out and the snow was getting intense, to maybe re-evaluate their plans. But I wonder if even more incidents would have occured if the snow had started a little later in the day, perhaps allowing people to travel into more hazardous terrain while it seemed a reasonable proposition.

Stevens Pass. They received 3 inches on Friday, and no new snow by the time we left Seattle Saturday morning (5:30am - in order to get in an early day, since the forecast called for winds to switch to the west by afternoon, warming things up). At that point, Snoqualmie had received only 5 inches in the previous 24 hours.

Give the avy forecast, and the weather forecast, it was certainly not an unreasonable day to plan to head into the backcountry. The forecast did indeed call for only 3-6 inches, and the previous day only 3 inches had fallen (where we went anyway)... hardly extreme conditions. But it sure did turn out to be extreme. I don't know how much experience those snowshoers had, but I'm thinking this could have happened to any of us. I guess one of the lessons learned is "get the hell out" when the snow is coming down that hard for that long, but it can be difficult to gauge how much snow is falling. Someone commented on another bulletin board "But I was floored that people were insane enough to be up in that entire area today at all!" ... that sounds like a reasonable thing to say after the fact, but actually I think that's a bit of an ignorant statement.

Here's some freshiez - digital forecast for the summit of rainier: http://www1.wrh.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/dwf?outFormat=Text&duration=72hr&interval=6&citylist=Mt+Rainier%2C46.86%2C-121.76&city=Go&latitude=&longitude=&ZOOMLEVEL=1&XSTART=&YSTART=&XC=&YC=&X=&Y=&siteID=SEW 133 inches over the next 8 days...

The Fred Meyer parking lot seems to work...

Snow was sick today... headed up towards Lichtenburg from the north. Heavy snow all day suprised us (I think the forecast in the morning called for 3-5 inches?). Broke trail all the way up Smith Brook Road, and had to break trail all the way back... it accumulated about 1 foot in a 3 hour period, and probably 1.5 to 2 feet while we were out. Triggered a small 1 foot slab, and loose snow slides were coming down everywhere (even down to smith brook road), decided it was time to turn around. Not a good time to be out. So actually the skiing wasn't that enjoyable, just deep. Very fluffy light snow, so actually some good turns were had on lower angle stuff. You could easily push your poles in 3 feet. And tomorrow is supposed to be the stormy windy day!... be careful out there....

I think it closes to uphill traffic at 5pm. Don't know about downhill traffic. There is overnight parking next to the round building.

Who needs a if you have a

from the Shames website: Shames receives 475 inches of annual snowfall, laying claim to one of the deepest, most consistent snow packs in North America and its backcountry access is unrivaled." - Powder Magazine

stevens (as it often does) was getting the east wind this past week, which kept the temps colder (and the snow drier ) compared to similar elevations west of the crest.

In case anyone is interested, this is what it looked like on Nov 22 (touring around Table mtn) Is the first one Death Picnic?

I thought the Carbon river road is open year round, as long as it doesn't washout. At any rate, it's still open now, and almost certainly will open before White River. Maybe you mean Mowich Lake Rd? White River doesn't usually open until late May.

It's called freezing rain. I've seen it rain when it's -10*C.

JayB you have the best avatar image on this site

shhhh! With that post you've increased the temp to 37 degrees! http://www.seawfo.noaa.gov/products/OSOMTB

The mountains are actively working on destroying SR20: http://www.kirotv.com/weather/2646126/detail.html I wonder much more is going to come down before the rains stop...

hmm... Baker's been avoid the rain all day, but it looks like it's finally gone above freezing there now..... probably because you posted that link!!

When you return your G3 skins, get some Ascensions instead. I've had mine for 5 years with no problems. I reglued them for the first time last year (accumulated too much dirt and pine needles on the surface). Used the brown paper bag method described to remove the dirty glue. The new glue I added seems to come off a little near the front of the ski. That didn't happen before I reglued. Not a huge problem, but maybe I shouldn't have reglued....

How is the road getting up to the lot? I figured it would be pretty snowed in by snow... Good luck getting your skin back... if I'm up there this weekend I'll look for it.

SNOWFALL NEW: 24 in 61 cm LAST 24 HOURS: 24 in 61 cm TEMPERATURE: 30 °F ° C WEATHER: Snowing lightly BASE AT HEATHER MEADOWS: 40 in 102 cm BASE AT PAN DOME : NA in NA cm SLOPE CONDITIONS: POSSIBLE opening Thursday get ready for the rain....

Even 11worth is gettin' some: I-90 is closed. TONIGHT...SHOWERS AND BREEZY... TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION 11 TO 17 INCHES. SNOW LEVEL FALLING TO 3000 FEET.