Great Pacific Northwest La NINA

Call tomorrow, if I can manage to get 3-4 hours sleep will be up to crystal on Wednesday.

/EDIT: That was "call" as a noun, as in I will be wandering around to see patients, not a request that somebody use a telephonic device to convey a message to me. Doubt any were confused, but then again you never know
Edited by Alveolus - 3/12/12 at 8:15pm

Stevens today (from their FB page):

 

It was moderately epic at Crystal on Sunday - 10" of new on hard frozen slush.  Still had fun, especially on skiers left on Northway.

 

Go up on Tuesday or Wednesday, the snow level goes up on Thursday!

Lots and lots of snow at Baker.  There has been several feet of snowfall in the last few days.  They report the base as 236" at Heather Meadows and 278" on Pan Dome.  Headed up this morning.

The Bitch is back...

 

Glad to say that at least this time, you guys are sharing the bounty.

 

Thanks

 

MULTIPLE STORM SYSTEMS WILL AFFECT NORCAL THIS WEEK WITH 
  SIGNIFICANT VALLEY RAIN AND HEAVY MOUNTAIN SNOW. THE FIRST SYSTEM 
  IS JUST BEGINNING TO AFFECT THE AREA EARLY THIS MORNING. A SWATH OF 
  MODERATE TO HEAVY PRECIP CURRENTLY STRETCHES FROM EUREKA TO 
  MEDFORD AND WILL DROP SOUTH OVER THE CENTRAL VALLEY AND SIERRA 
  MOUNTAINS AS THE DAY PROGRESSES. RAINFALL FOR VALLEY LOCATIONS 
  WILL BE FROM 1-3 INCHES THROUGH WEDNESDAY. SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WILL 
  BE 2-4 FEET ABOVE 6500 FEET.

 

Three more storms follow the first with progressively colder temps and lower snow.

I skied Crystal yesterday... The snow was great!   Chair 6 and Rex were closed for high winds, but it wasn't too crowded at all mid-mountain.   I was in knee deep snow off quicksilver/boondoggle.  Too much fun.  

Baker was super nice today.  Chair 6 reopened with 2 feet of powder.

 

Folks were getting after it big time, a couple of nasty injuries today,

 

ski safe.

This thread is disgusting.

Well, it's not all perfection.  Mt. Baker has gotten 10 feet of snowfall since the first of the month, but today, which should have been an epic one, the ski area is closed because there is so much snow on the trees along the highway that they are falling and limbs are breaking, so the WSDOT closed it.

 

Damn!

 

Sounds like a bit of warming coming with this next front. I just hope SL stays at or below 4,000'. Would really like to try and hit Crystal on Thursday.

Alpental Lodge today!

 

Was heavy snow today at Stevens. Needed really big boards to keep from getting bogged down on the shallower aspects. If things cool down through the night, and it keeps dumping, Friday will be good.

 

I'll be at Stevens on Friday through Sunday.  It looks like it should be at least OK and maybe much better.

Was definitely deep. And heavy. The family was on Praxis Powder Boards & Protests and Salomon Rocker 2s. Safe to say we would not have wanted anything less. Road was open on and off - so we took off early as the supposed official word was that there were no promises after about 12:45 or so. Seems like they kept it open in then end. That said, the only time I've seen the road situation sketchier was a year or two ago when our car got clipped by a slide. Funky stuff.

 

In case anyone did not hear - Baker had a huge - as in HUGE - pre-opening sidebounds slide that ran inbounds. Took out some decent sized trees along the way. 

 

Got up to Crystal on wednesday (running on 2 hours sleep post-call, a biscuit and a bloody mary).  Snowed all day, was a good day, could have been a great day but the entire upper mountain was closed (not even rex was running).  Was not windy so assuming avy concerns kept the upper mountain closed.  Even with the upper mountain closed had a good time, not particularly crowded and could find stashes almost all the way down to the lodge.  Did not get up today, but oddly (to me) they report the same thing with only chinook, forest queen (ok and discovery) running.  Are they saving the powder for the weekend or is the inbounds (but upper mountain) terrain still that avy prone, even with 2 days to work on it?

 

/EDIT: seems they could at least open the smaller lower mountain lifts (I'm looking at you quicksilver and gold hills) on a weekday when the upper mountain is closed for whatever reason

Edited by Alveolus - 3/15/12 at 8:02pm

I heard it was pretty rainy at Crystal today, a friend of mine went up and said he was pretty soaked.

 

Alpental also got rain today, I may or may not go up tomorrow as it is supposed to snow a bit overnight and tomorrow.

http://www.mtbaker.us/1011/snow_report/

 

If you scroll down to the bottom the the snow report page they have some pics of today's avalanche in the Baker backcountry.

 

Glad nobody was hurt, IMO they make the right call stay closed today.  

From the pictures and from what they said about the location, it doesn't look like it went inbounds.  Rumble gully is pretty deep and the pictures look like it took place in the bottom of the gully which is all out of bounds.  It would have been easily visible from the ski area, though.  If it did run inbounds it would have had to go a significant way uphill and take out a lot of trees as it did.  That's the same location that they lost 5 people in during 98-99.

 

Edit:  After looking at the pictures some more, it looks as if it very well could have clipped the inbounds area at the bottom of Chair 8.  Wow.

Crystal had Cascade Concrete waist deep in some places. Really tough conditions. By far, the worst ski day of this season at CM.

Wow, just read the Unofficial networks article on this storm.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/huge-avalanche-closes-mt-baker-ski-resort-110-inches-snow-6-days-mt-baker-wa-ski-resort-closed-yesterday-downed-trees-83299/

Guess what? Here in Ontario I'm leaving for work in shorts, a band tee, and flip-flops. Its 20 degrees celsius (I think that's like 70F ?)

 

I'm pretty damn envious of all you lucky people that still have snow, let alone have TONS OF IT. Curse you  *shakes fist*

I'm about to leave for Stevens for the weekend but I'll try to get some pictures of the damage next week, that is if there is anything to see since it might be buried under several feet of new by then.

 

Baker is open for normal operations today.

Things are fine north of the border, too.

 

Whitewater was only claiming 11" on Tuesday, but I got up for a few runs before going in to work. Heavy and a bit wind-effected, but plenty of knee- and thigh-deep to be found. Very "floaty." The skiing was definitely 3D, since you mostly did not touch the base underneath.

 

I didn't take any pictures because it was snowing so hard.

 

More has been coming all week, and the base is now over 10 feet.

 

AFAIK, it did not rain at Whitewater on Thursday. The snow line stayed below the bottom of the Glory chair, just barely.

 

Back and side-country is not recommended. Many instabilities exist.

Wilsonville, OR. 20miles, south of Portland. Elevation - 154feet. Picture taken this week:

 

 

It is all gone now but no flip flops in our house yet.

 

Vlad