March 5, 2008, Mt. Rainier, Cowlitz Rocks

After yesterday's Tatoosh trailbreaking, my old bones didn't trudge away from the Paradise VC until 11 today.  Breaking trail down the Valley Rd & up Mazama Ridge, I was pleased to find that ski penetration was halved to about 4", compared to Tuesday (settlement?).  There was a group of four laying down pretty tracks on Bundy's & 911, otherwise a blank canvas sparkled in all directions.

The Ice Caves valley was filled from wall to wall with long, curving 2' high snow dunes for over a mile, like a minature Sahara.  Viewed from above in the evening light, each dune cast a sharp shadow and the concentric pattern seemed to center on St. Helens, as though the blast wave were frozen in time...

Above about 7000', the snow smoothed out, with barely any ski penetration.  Higher on Paradise Glacier, it looked even louder.  The ski down was better than I expected; the dust on crust up high didn't break & the roller coaster dunes were fun to schuss.  Below about 6500' there was about an inch of new snow overnight that smoothed & strengthened yesterday's breakable styrofoam crust.  There was even some decent older powder left on the sheltered parts of the W side of Mazama.  I didn't encounter any corn or recent avy activity.  There may be a breakable sun crust on S aspects tomorrow.

Those with an aversion to rants should avoid my post on the Road Access board...