Summer in Washington State

Michael and a friend from work, Ben Martens, headed down to do a little backcountry skiing this past weekend at Mt. Rainier. The plan was to head up to Camp Muir and ski down. This is about 5000 vertical feet up from Paradise visitors center. We expected to be able to walk in hiking boots for a mile or so before strapping on the skis. To our amazement there was about 4-5 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot when we arrived in the morning and it snowed pretty hard all day long. We talked to a guide and a lot of the summit expiditions were turning back because the conditions were so bad up at Camp Muir. So we decided to just go as far as we safely could and then head back. We spent some time on the way up digging a snow pit so Ben could learn a little about avalanche assesment. We passed and were passed by a few groups that were heading up for summit attempts and others that were just out snowshoeing. After awhile we stopped for some lunch about 1200 vertical feet above the parking lot, the wind was blowing pretty hard so we dug a little shelter to sit and enjoy our food. While we were sitting there one of the big summit teams passed us on their way back down, this was the same group that we had started with earlier that morning. They had made it up about a half mile further and then turned back because the wind was so bad and there were whiteout conditions. We took that as a clue that we should head back as well and so headed down. There was some really nice snow for skiing and so we got a few nice turns in. A news team was at the parking lot filming when we got back and we found the spot on the news website, click here to see it.