TR Replies

Andy - the slab was at the very top of the west-facing slopes of Mazama Ridge - probably what you are calling the "front" - right below the fringe of trees which runs along the whole west edge of Mazama Ridge.  It was probably about 100 yards to skier's left (south) of the standard uptrack/trail on the "front". The run would naturally lead right down to the Paradise valley road. I'm glad that things had become more stable for you!

That's quite a haul for February.
Well done.

I'd add that the big clearcut Kendall Knob nearly always seems to be exposed to sun and wind, so I've only ever found really nice skiing there in corn snow conditions (though in the woods off the upper ridge there are some nice spots), but the cover seems a bit thin up there to hope for great corn experience this season - the small trees are still sticking out fairly far up the slope at least from looking at it from the highway so by the time we get much warmth I think it will be pretty tight up...

I might add that I was up in the kendall knob area on Monday and was pretty disappointed with the snow below 4K. It was a mixture of sun rain and wind crust, and from what I could tell the entire E facing portion of the knob had some kind of crust all the way up. I was there early in the morning tho and it is quite possible that crust will soften up every day around noon. Also, I could tell that it was going to get better (at least in the trees) once above 4K but unfortunately I ran out of time...

Nothing wrong with being a BB adict, Silas.  Lots of great terrain up there.  Great report.

Looks like a great trip, Brent.
Thanks for sharing it.

Actually, the North slope(s) were somewhat windpacked.
We skied down the Union Creek side finding a somewhat crusty surface.  Yes, one did push through - yet the snow quality was quite better on the Bullion Basin side. The moderate laoding of light snow from the North , I would infer, should keep the South slopes quite nicely as long we have low temperatures.

hs

Nothing meaningful to add to that Relay Tower route, but if misery loves company then it sounds like I got lost in the exact same spot you did the last time I tried it (several years ago). I spotted the tower from the other side at the Silver Fir lift last week and it looks pretty straight forward from there... ???

I'll try it again sometime with a better map...

Glad you found some good stuff at Kendall.

-Tom

I'd agree with that. Looks like we're into some good skiing conditons the next few days.....

Darin

Hey...no fair! You drag me out into a nasty storm and I just about catch hypothermia, then you go home and have a great day in the Olympics. But really, I'm glad to hear that conditions have improved.

Well, as my friend Nick would say, "at least you got out!"  Are we to conclude that the telemetry at Paradise is unreliable?  Thanks for the blow by blow.

Charles,

  Wow, that story sounds hardcore! I give you an A for your efforts. And good work on digging the car!

Darin

Charles Good report about whats going on up there with all this snow. Was thinking it might have been cooler despite the telemetry readings. How far did the slab seem to run that you setoff. Did you see many other skiers out and any other signs of instability??.

Guess it worked that I skipped the trip, course I've been busy after the phone call wed night "your boats taken on water you better come down to look at it" !!

CharlesW

Sounds like a great trip, zenom.
Nice report, too.
Thanks for posting it.

Yup, think so. We skinned up to below a boarder's jump just as 4 or 5 took turns going down to the creek.  Your tracks had less sitzmarks than ours!

I was at Yodelin the day before (Sunday Feb 16th) from about 8:30-4pm and I didn't see a drop of rain.  It snowed in the morning and by noonish it had cleared and was sunny and
very warm. Could the crust perhaps have been from a change in temperature? That or it rained very early in the morning.  

Wow. Eight of you.
Quite a gaggle of skier/campers you had there, Bud.
It sounds lie you're really getting the lay of the land up there, too.  Good on ya.

Ron ,I bet we did run into them. There were 2 guys we met crossing just beyond the creek in Edith basin. Was that You Don? We were going do that loop but Ron J got distracted by beer and cheeseburgers in visitor center! We were up there around 3pm and stayed till 4.

Nice Report, Kenji.
Good to see you're still out there doing your "ironman" tours  :)

Funny we didn't run into you guys, Don.
That's a nice loop you did.

Allen,

  Thanks for the info. I have yet to buy a digital, I will consider this one.

Good Turns, Darin

thanks!

i'm amazed at my Canon's ability to shoot directly into the sun, and expose everything right.  I'd highly recommend it.  It also starts fast, and is not too much of a battery hog, like a lot of digitals.  It's a Canon Powershot A40, and you can get em under $300 these days.

It's also small, so I'll actually carry the thing.

Allright Allen!!
Nice Shots  :D

Yeah, it has to be on the net somewhere.  Then you put the url between the codes that you can generate with the picture button above the message box in the "post reply" dialog.
If you like you can post them for free on msn where I post mine.  You can even add them to my "Tatoosh" trip if you like... you just have to register or have a msn pasport or something like that.  You'll figure it out; I did  :)

You're right, Allen, it was a good day for fatties.  I think all of us were the poachers I was talking about  ;)
Sounds like you ran into similar conditions to ours.  I was wondering what Foss was like.  Did you do any runs there as you passed by?
Did you happen to take the bowl nw of Foss back down to the road?