[TR] Mount Rainier - Paradise Glacier 1/18/2009

[dbconlin]

Trip: Mount Rainier - Paradise Glacier

 

Date: 1/18/2009

 

Trip Report:

With the great weather and lack of snow, we hoped to get a little spring skiing in above the inversion. Nick, Chad, Luke, and I headed up the Muir snowfield intent on skiing the Paradise Glacier, which is reputedly more sheltered and receives more morning sun.

 

The ascent was treacherous - only one of us had ski crampons and there were some sketchy icy traverse sections. At one point Nick took a spill and self-arrested with his bare hands, resulting in some minor wounds (see pics).

 

When we got to 8600' right below Anvil Rock, we took a nice lunch/potluck break where we passed around homemade granola bars (Dave), Cocktail pepperoni (Chad), Terra chips (Luke), and - the biggest hit - horsecock , er dry Italian sausage, with crackers (Nick). WE watched the hordes go on by ascending to Muir. It felt nice to bask in the sun and watch them labor with the contented notion that for us, from here, it would be a short traverse and then DOWN.

 

The upper slopes were horribly wind-scoured/sastrugi. We persevered until the slope rolled off a bit more, where it was more sheltered and lower elev, and found pockets of decent corn. At one point we came to a very steep headwall that led to what looked to be excellent chute-skiing in better snow conditions, but decided to traverse to less extreme slopes due to the firm snow conditions. After a sketch traverse across a steep section, we found perfect corn for about 800' of skiing.

 

This was followed by some more traversing and navigating the complex terrain of the lower glacier while trying not to end up too far from Paradise. None of us had been there before, but it was a good learning experience. Once we found the way it was pretty straightforward.

 

Pics: HERE

 

 

[scottgg]

Nice Dave, good to see yer getting out, but how 'bout some alpine action?