Paradise

I took advantage of the nice day to head to the top of our forecast zone on Mount Rainier and get a feel for how conditions are shaping up on the volcanoes. 

Travel conditions were better than expected today, but ski crampons were still useful in a few spots. The skiing was more lackluster than I had hoped for - but what can you do? Discontinuous surfaces seem to be the name of the game and we found a lot of them - firm crust, breakable crust, a few cms over a crust, moist'ish snow, dry'ish snow, wind-pressed snow, blue ice, and the smallest pockets of wind-drifted snow. The surprise for the day was getting blasted by the cold wind as we ascended above 8,000 feet. It was moving snow, volcano style, but not forming slabs.

The best and most consistent ski conditions were found on low-angled slopes at lower elevations where the snow wasn't as wind-hammered.

It's a mixed bag out there. Soft'ish and dry'ish snow exists on shaded slopes, including near surface facets and surface hoar. Elsewhere, the wind has stripped new snow down to the 1/10 crust, deposited it into shallow depressions, or left it to bake in the sun. There are multiple melt-freeze crusts in the upper half meter of the snowpack from sunny or wet weather since the turn of the year.