Snow in the PNW 2012/13 Thread

[Count Fantismo]

great pics.

Absolutely stunning day on Rainier with Patatero yesterday- sunny, with almost no wind and some low clouds. Neither of us had been up there before, so the standard Paradise-to-Muir route and down. Now that its been ticked off the list, I think I will skip the wind hammered upper snowfield next time...

Heading up:













and coming down (the snow looks better than it skied...)







A little skier panorama:



Patatero:



SEMag:





Killer sunset:







Conclusion: there are few things I enjoy more in life than long alpine approaches on a sunny day.

[Count Fantismo]

MH Meadows wasnt great today. We need snow. Cold but the sun showed up late morning. Had to look hard for any snow. ...and heather canyon was still closed. Still better than sitting on my couch though.

[ISL]

The photo labelled 'patartero' looks darn good - looks like you were floating above the crust?

Ski conditions good to acceptable below 7k?

[shroom]

got out to Steven's today with the usual suspects. tried our best to make the most of the shitty rain crust that we were graced with last week.

the scenery is great when it can be seen


stevens1 by shroom32, on Flickr

at least, auvgeek was stoked on it


z1 by shroom32, on Flickr

suprechicken milking what could be milked


chicken by shroom32, on Flickr

geek wasn't interested in slowing down for my lens, being the timid guy he is


z2 by shroom32, on Flickr

despite the lack of snow, skiing in the sun never fails to make me a little giddy.

[bfree]

Sunset from high on Chair Peak today, glorious.

[SchralphMacchio]

Sunset from high on Chair Peak today, glorious.

Full of f'ing win! How was the twilight ski down?

[bfree]

Full of f'ing win! How was the twilight ski down?

Eh, a bit adventurous. My partner's boots froze into walk mode, which is less than ideal when descending refreezing crust and avy debris at night. All in all, a better day of climbing than skiing but well worth the views!

[werdswerf]

Eh, a bit adventurous. My partner's boots froze into walk mode, which is less than ideal when descending refreezing crust and avy debris at night. All in all, a better day of climbing than skiing but well worth the views!

Almost afraid to ask, but were they Cochises?

[bfree]

Almost afraid to ask, but were they Cochises?

Nah, Maestrales.

[jfost]

Sunset from high on Chair Peak today, glorious.

...

looks rather like Mt. Crumpit

[PNWbrit]

Beautiful day to be in the mountains yesterday. Not your average typical WA conditions.

[wolfelot]

^^^^Sweet pics! Good turns and scenery for sure.

How long is this high pressure system going to lock in that is coming?

[Patarero]

The photo labelled 'patartero' looks darn good - looks like you were floating above the crust?

Ski conditions good to acceptable below 7k?

Hit ice on every turn except for one on that line. ~12" of pow on top though. Yeah, best turns lower.

[Andyski]

Skiied Jim Hill. 80% suck/20% fun. Anything in the trees, even up to 5k was hellish garbage.

[AK47bp]

Well at least the weather was nice today.

[auvgeek]

Skiied Jim Hill. 80% suck/20% fun. Anything in the trees, even up to 5k was hellish garbage.

Figured as much. Glad I decided to work today instead of touring. But then again, I missed the chance to get in some good Type II+ fun.

[Zeedashbo]

Skiied Jim Hill. 80% suck/20% fun. Anything in the trees, even up to 5k was hellish garbage.

Glad to hear you're not doing it right. Everyone deserves Jim Hell before they get heaven.


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[d542east]

Skied Shuksan via the White Salmon yesterday with my main partner in crime, Eric. We had perfect weather and had the whole route to ourselves. He broke trail pretty much the whole way up and I wouldn't have made it to the top without him. Snow was variable and wind-affected everywhere except down the main gut of the Salmon where it was awesome firm powder all the way down.

Skied from about 40' below the summit. Needed crampons and an axe for a short section above that. The technical crux was a narrow steep choke of rime on the summit pyramid chute that involved side slipping, and self belaying with axe sticks. Can't really call that skiing, but it was worth it to make turns in such a wild spot.


The White Salmon Glacier is about 2000' of wide open, fall line skiing. We caught it at sunset:


Absolutely incredible day, still reeling from the experience.
more pictures

[Andyski]

you're not doing it right.

If there was a theme for yesterday, it was definitely this.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

^^^^Sweet pics! Good turns and scenery for sure.

How long is this high pressure system going to lock in that is coming?

Impossible to say but the pattern of the last few years is that it's going to hang around for awhile.

Seems like every year for the last 4 years we've had a very similar scenario - lots of snow up until December, then a warm rain event followed by a stubborn ridge of high pressure that hangs around for a month or more. If the pattern holds true again this year the snow machine will turn on with a vengeance around the end of Feb/beginning of March. I hope it doesn't take that long this year.

[Zeedashbo]

If there was a theme for yesterday, it was definitely this.

I've been beat down by that hill. It took me at least ten times to figure that mountain out. And judging by the other skin tracks i see out there it takes others just as long. lemme know if you want a proper intro sometime. It's by far my favorite tour around.


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[Andyski]

I've been beat down by that hill. It took me at least ten times to figure that mountain out. And judging by the other skin tracks i see out there it takes others just as long. lemme know if you want a proper intro sometime. It's by far my favorite tour around.

I will absolutely take you up on that some time, as I love the terrain in there, but just haven't figured out how not thrash around half the day to get to the goods. One of the guys working the nordic center showed off some cool aerial photos of the area in his office. TONS of options. Hangovers and terrible skinning conditions didn't help either yesterday...

[workinforturns]

Some stoke from the dryspell

View from top of Herman

Other direction

Sam with a faceshot

And some commonwealth pillows

[Dromond]

Two pictures from two days this weekends in two different regions. One had skiing much better than the other, despite what it looked like in the pictures.

[wolfelot]

Impossible to say but the pattern of the last few years is that it's going to hang around for awhile.

Seems like every year for the last 4 years we've had a very similar scenario - lots of snow up until December, then a warm rain event followed by a stubborn ridge of high pressure that hangs around for a month or more. If the pattern holds true again this year the snow machine will turn on with a vengeance around the end of Feb/beginning of March. I hope it doesn't take that long this year.

Mehhh. I hope it doesn't totally coincide with my visit to the area the 18-26th this month.