Powder to Corn

As the sun shines more frequently, and the freezing level rises, the snow around the mountain changes. It consolidates, mushes together, and begins to melt away. Spring skiing conditions are on the way! With better weather patterns in the forecast, now is a great time to have solitude on the standard climbing routes.

Also, please note: the overnight parking location at Paradise has changed: it is now exclusively in the lower parking lot. Please do not park by the Paradise Inn (snow removal operations are taking place).

... and, due to a recent accident, a word of warning: Skiers, snowboarders, and snowshoers should use extreme caution when engaging in snowsports in the Paradise area. High snowbanks, created by road plowing operations, coupled with unseasonably high snowdepths, present a falling hazard above plowed roads and parking lots. Make sure you have scoped out your intended route before engaging in snowsports around the Paradise area. Parents should ensure children are kept away from all snowbanks above roads.

Steph Abegg's Website

Seattle climber and photographer Steph Abegg has made a map of Mount Rainier with major routes drawn on it, each route shown in a different color. It is intended to be used for planning, rather than as a field map, and makes a nice poster for your wall. Click on the map to see it in a larger view:

Steph has also taken SAR, fatality, and climbing data provided on www.mountrainierclimbing.us and produced an array of graphs and analyses.


If you would like to make a poster of the map or look at her graphs and data, Steph can be reached via her webpage: http://sites.google.com/site/stephabegg/

Alta Vista Snow Pit

Howdy Everyone!

This week's snow pit is from the east side of Alta Vista and features the massive amount of new snow that we received during last week's storm cycle.

As you can see from the pit graph, there is small sun crust at the surface (that made for bad skiing) and below that is a 105 cm layer of cold, new snow. This layer has settled about 5" and continues to stabilize. Below this layer there are a number of complex ice crust layers that were observed just below the surface in the Feb. 9th snow pit near The Castle in the Tatoosh Range. These layers remain a source of instability and are acting as release surfaces for the deep slab avalanches that have been occurring in Washington.

Stability tests from the Alta Vista snow pit did not indicate deep instability. The compression, extended column, and the Rutschblock tests had failures either near the surface or did not fail. However, as noted by NWAC, even as the snowpack stabilizes there are still persistent weak layers, and localized areas throughout the region are experiencing large, slab releases.

The forecast is showing another series of fronts that are expected to cross the Northwest through the end of the weekend, bringing significant new snow accumulation. Cautious route finding is encouraged if traveling in the backcountry.