Mt. Rainier heavy-handed policing

I guess the question is, next time will you be down through the gate before 5pm?

I will get down safely and don't effing care what time that is and if they want to write me a ticket they can spend their budget sending a LEO to a court date.

Jerks. (park jackalopes, not anyone here)

Edited to remove profanity per request.

CascadeClimber,
Were you the party of two who skied out of Gib Ledges? If so I was the guy asking you about the route at Muir (and in the parking lot on my way to our shared unsavory fate). Did you actually ski through the Ledges?

CascadeClimber,
Were you the party of two who skied out of Gib Ledges? Did you actually ski through the Ledges?

Yes, that was us. No, we did not ski across the Ledges. I've been that way at least a dozen times now and I've never seen enough snow on it to ski the whole way across.

Our intent was the ski the ID, which we've done before. But the northeast wind was ripping up it and having endured -40F wind chill at the top, we were ready to be on the sunny, south-facing, wind-protected side of Gib Rock, and didn't want to have to try to pick our way through the icefall on icy snow like we'd skied from the crater.

The bottleneck on Gib Chute is snow-filled now, but appears to be about 10 feet wide at its narrowest point. Too steep and narrow for me

Can we ease off on the profanity a bit? Thanks.

I was in Whittakers coffee shop this weekend and heard a few people complaining about this. They were from Vancouver and Seattle. Seems the word is spreading....Bad PR.

The question in my mind is whether making the winter experience at Paradise less appealing is the overall objective -- with long term goal of reducing winter visits to the point that they can button up the park roads at Longmire by Halloween and not re-open until start of guided climbing season around the first week of May.

FWIW: This year the Nordic Patrol folks are having to deal with higher levels of red tape. Previously any volunteer with a driver's licence could drive the truck, now the park service is limiting drivers to those that have completed a NPS driving safety course.

Sorry Marcus, I tried to keep it contained but I was just too irked. I will amend the language in my post if you want.

CascadeClimber,
40 below windchill, wow that's cold! I remember reading the summit forecast and thinking it looked survivable but Arctic.  For comparison, when you showed up at Muir it was a balmy 10 degrees with a windchill of -10 F. But hey, the sun was shining!

After I departed Muir I traversed far right so that I could get a closer look at Gib Chute. Here's a digitally-zoomed picture. Not pictured is a viable route through the bergschrund at the bottom, but as you noted from above, that entrance looks sketchy at best.