Home > Trip Reports > January 12, 2003, Bullion Basin (Crystal Mt)

January 12, 2003, Bullion Basin (Crystal Mt)

1/12/03
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3625
5
Posted by silaswild on 1/12/03 9:24am
Forecast of 6-11" snow overnight Saturday suggested a tour Sunday, and Crystal seemed the most likely place to find less stormy weather.  On the ride down Silas "promised" lots of powder and blue skies, but finding rain at the parking lot the troops began grumbling.  Since the rain was very light and we had nowhere else to go, we headed up in slush then freezing rain crusted snow.  At 5000' the crust was gone and sure enough there was 6+" of Cascade powder.  Some of us found glopstopper useful.  
Below the crest headed into Union Creek we tested the snow and decided conditions were not safe enough for us, so we headed back to Bullion Basin.  We skied the slopes below East Peak and found them very pleasant.  In the afternoon the sky cleared, the summit of Rainier was visible and the sun came out, all promises met.
Below 5000' the skiing back to the parking lot was more difficult.

Here's a link to some photos of the trip, Russ Schwartz photographer: http://home.attbi.com/~rschwartz45/wsb/html/view.cgi-photos.html-.html
Thank for the report, Silas. I'm wondering if you would provide some more details about the conditions you found heading into Union Creek drainage which made you decide not to keep going? With recent events re-emphasizing the importance of avalanche hazard evaluation, I think that this kind of info can be very useful to everyone.

i was with silas and did the pit tests.  i dug about 3 feet down and found several layers of firm crust covered by 8 inches of fresh.  i did some shovel tests and found a consistent easy shear layer one inch above the most recent crust.  so basically you had the old crust, an inch of fresh, a shear layer, then 7 more inches of fresh.  i dug a rutshblock and as silas inched up to it to do a skier weight test the top 7 inches slid off as a slab before he even got on top of it.  this was on the east facing slope descending into union creek near the ridge top.  

when we headed back to bullion and checked out the south facing slope below east peak we found similar layers, but considerably more shovel pressure was required to get it to shear and it wasn't as clean.  there were also more wooded lines to ski, so we skied it with caution.  

Greg,

thanks for the pit info. I am curious to know if your Rblock was three-sided or completely free standing.
It sounds as if you guys made a good decision to ski on the anchored slopes.

it was three sided.  it slid as a unit and was very unambiguous.  i had no second thoughts about turning around, particularly since in know that slope doesn't have much in the way of tree protection.  

thanks for the reply. I thought it might have been 3 sided as someone coming up to a Rblock should not be able to influence it since it is freestanding. On a 3 sided block the energy transfer was carrying over from the person inching up to it. Same results on this test - leave.

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january-12-2003-bullion-basin-crystal-mt
silaswild
2003-01-12 17:24:33