ARob Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Trip: Paradise, Mt. Rainier - Heading Around Pan Point Date: 4/11/2009 Trip Report: We headed up to Paradise to get above the rain and hoping for some snow. All we did was head into a white out. We strapped in and headed up toward Pan Point because you couldn't really see anything and that's the only place we could get to with basically our eyes closed. It was blustery at points with some snow but it wasn't really dumping like we had hoped. There was some trace snow over a hard pack of a few inches. We took the time to dig around and do some testing. About four inches down was a persistent weak layer of mushy snow. We did some block testing and found that it didn't fail under the compression snow shovel test but when we pulled on the block it sheared under moderate pressure. We looked at the shear line and it was between Q1 and Q2 a little over a foot deep. We continued to get up to Pan Point and the conditions were not that great on that slope. It was pretty crusty when we headed down and we skidded around until we got to gentler slopes. The white out got even thicker and it was hard to tell if you were going up or down or what the snow you were going over looked like. It was good practice skiing in those conditions but it wasn't the most enjoyable day on the crown jewel of the Cascades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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