Glacier Vista Snowshoe — Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008

Mount Rainier Area > SW - Longmire/Paradise

~ Some friends and I headed up to Mt Rainier on Monday. Initially, I had hoped to head up Mazama Ridge from Narada Falls to Paradise and then head up to Glacier Vista. The road did finally open yesterday (has been closed due to avalanches since Feb 5th) but the ridge route was too dangerous to attempt. We decided against the backup plan of a slog up the Nisqually River from the falls (avoiding the avalanche zone) because no one’s been there and the knee deep slog would have worn us down. So we drove straight up to Paradise and headed straight up the mountain (on the safest route due to the “considerable” avalanche danger) to Glacier Vista. (the safe route.) The mountain was gorgeous even from the parking lot It was a challenging climb up to the vista; the snow was deep and crusty. Panorama Point teased us and lured several others up its avalanche slope, but we chose to be cautious and smart. We also chose to get the heck off of the mountain well before 3:00 PM when the rangers said that the snow conditions would become dangerous. We headed down a little after noon. (call me overly cautious, but I want to live to snowshoe another day) I did have all my avalanche gear (and gave “the talk”) even though we stayed in a safe area. It was pretty funny, when I tested the “search” mode in the parking lot, I discovered another avalanche beacon 7.1 meters away from us. The sky was an amazing blue (the kind I used to remember in the SE Utah Desert and in Colorado) and it was a day where we stopped every few feet (and not even because we were sucking wind) to say, “WOW, this is our back yard! We LIVE here!” It was an awesome day and I’m tired. I’m pretty happy to have had three days of snowshoeing and one day of biking riding in four days off. I need to go back to work to rest. We finished up the trip with Mexican food and a margarita! The rest of the pictures are available here http://www.wildcelticrose.net/lisasplace/Paradisesnowshoe0208.html ~L