55' of snow still at Artists Point

Well in one spot at least.  But with 26' at the parking lot and 30' at the Lake Ann Trailhead might be awhile before you're driving up there......

www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/06/30/2082...ll-buried-under.html

Updated today. They won't be opening the road to the upper lot! It will remain closed at Austin Pass for the summer. www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/06/30/2083...arking-lot-wont.html

55 feet is a lot of snow considering there was only 128 inches at 4,210 feet above sea level at the the ski area that day.

Andrew the 4200 foot depth is a for-real measurement, representative of average terrain.  The 55 foot depth (and the 30 foot depth reported nearby) is not.  The state, in its infinite wisdom, built the Artist Point parking lot in a depression just downwind from a ridge which collects huge drifts--a natural snow-collector.  Then they lowered the existing depression even further, and built a restroom in one of the spots which collects even more snow than the rest of the parking lot.  The other extremely deep measurements are taken at equally unrepresentative spots--road cuts which fill in fully or trace the lee sides of natural windbreaks.

It is also true that snowdepths in that area, along with accumulations during storms, deepen quickly as altitude increases and you move closer to Mt. Baker.  It can snow six inches at Heather Meadows, eight or ten at Pan Dome (5000 feet), and a foot at Artist Point--all within a mile or two and 800 vertical feet of each other. But the main determining factor in the depths quoted by the reporter is the location of the parking lot and the layout of the highway. 

Mark

Thanks, Mark! Regine had speculated it had to do with drifts. But 55 feet still seemed quite deep just for drifting. Filling in a deep depression or defile in the right location is much more plausible. I also wondered if the guy using the GPS was necessarily getting super accurate readings given the variance in snow depth in very short distances (signal deflection/bounce, etc.). I could, however, see that occurring very easily with deep road cuts. We, of course, have skied Artist Point, Herman saddle, etc. (and the OP is Regine's son :-. I'm now trying to think of any depressions here at Mt. Rainier that are so steep (and, I think, they must be narrow) to accumulate that kind of depth; haven't come up with any areas to check out yet that would seem to have those characteristics.