Feb 1: Mazama Back Bowl, Paradise
2/15/09
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2327
2
SB Graham, me, and a few other fellows ventured up to Rainier more for exercise and recon than for quality skiing. Skinned up Edith to Golden Gates and followed the windloading to the back bowl, and found some nice quality stuff to play on for the day. Short runs and short skin tracks led to mass lapping of various aspects, North and easterly facing slopes held some nice consistent snow...not sure waht to call it other than windblown powish stuff. Pleasantly surprised and delighted to ski something soft. Stayed mainly to the little nubbin with the cornice on it for steeper turns. Everything else was extremely variable...go check it out, its probably some of the nicer snow around Paradsie right now.
a wonderful way to avoid the superbowl! pictures are on the way. a note on safety: as we were leaving, the wind deposits, which were stacking up fairly rapidly, were starting to get slabbier, so watch out for slabs, especialliy on NE aspects, and even in areas that may have been previously ski stabilized - skin tracks were disappearing as fast as we were lapping them...
Here are a couple thumbnails. that's me dropping some mini cornices, and paul ripping skins on top of the same knob. more pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Graham.Parrington/SuperMazamaBowlSunday?feat=directlink
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