After an awesome time exploring Greece and Austria, it’s good to be back in Washington USA. It’s sunny and 65° right now in North Bend, but just a few days ago we were skiing powder — and I’m sure we will again — soon. The PNW is terrific like that.
I spent a day at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort last weekend. Yeah, yeah, it’s a ski area, but it was a good day to avoid unstable slopes and lap some lift accessed pow. I hadn’t skied the Crystal area until this winter, and I’ve been impressed with the lift-accessed side country, as well as the copious backcountry in the area.
We made up for our impiety the next day by enjoying a sunny tour up to Camp Muir on Mount Rainier. Muir is a fairly decent choice in unstable conditions, although there is one steep slope that must be ascended. Although the NWAC forecast was moderate, I felt uneasy about the recent snow, rain layer, and warming temps. Our suspicions were confirmed as we witnessed a few sizable avalanches on south facing slopes throughout the day.
Matt finds deep snow on Saturday. It rained on Friday, so I wasn’t expecting much, but the foot of light pow exceeded expectations.
Julia enjoys a hidden pow stash we found.
Yours truly.
Phil makes it look extra deep.
We were treated to awesome views throughout the day. For our last run we hiked up to the King, a small side-country peak. Here’s Julia dropping in.
Sunday felt like an entirely different season than Saturday. T-shirt temps, blue skies, and wind-scoured snow. We settled on a day at Muir, worried about warming instabilities on steeper slopes and at lower elevations. Indeed, we saw a few large avalanches throughout the day on south facing slopes.
Laura enjoys scenic turns on the descent from Muir.
Louie Dawson earned his Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University in 2014. When he’s not skiing Mount Baker or somewhere equally as snowy, he’s thinking about new products to make ski mountaineering more fun and safe.