Muir
November 30, 2008 at 7:50 pm | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a CommentA fun springlike day up on the snowfield with friends, some unexpected. Certainly the most enjoyable skiing of the month, and perhaps the season. It’s fun to fly down corn cruisers. Where’s winter?
Many good days begin with sunrise.
Wow.
A canonical photo, nicely lit.
The fearless ski partner skis into the maw of giant seracs.
Headed home. Look how little snow there is down low!
Fifty
November 29, 2008 at 2:29 pm | In Drivel, Gravity, Life, Mountains, Physics, Skiing | Leave a Commentweeks ago:
An atomic physicist branches out into experimental gravity.
Today’s seen the beginnings of a start in on a PRL for our experiment, so I’m feeling a little bit productive. Productivity led to a coffee break. A break led to distractions, and I found myself staring at last winter’s trip reports. If this year’s like last year, the heavy snow arrives next weekend. Unlike last year, we don’t have the scary hoary base that took so many lives. I’m patient now.
Now that I’m twitching on hazelnut rocket fuel, I guess it’s time to get back to work describing our apparatus in detail. Work today, ski tomorrow!
Edit: It would seem that patience is requisite.
ANOTHER THING THE LONG RANGE MODELS AGREE ON IS THAT THE PATTERN WILL KEEP THE SNOW LEVEL FAIRLY HIGH -- MOST LIKELY BETWEEN 5000 AND 8000 FT DURING THE EXTENDED PERIOD. SO PEOPLE WAITING FOR SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS WILL HAVE TO WAIT LONGER YET.
Incorrect
November 26, 2008 at 7:29 pm | In Physics | Leave a Comment
This plot isn’t right, but it’s pretty.
It may have been a successful day of debugging our experiment. Probably not, but maybe. In addition, I finally coaxed my computer into making the above plot, which, despite being obviously wrong, represents a little progress.
Addendum
November 25, 2008 at 9:50 pm | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a Comment
PreCCDawn over compact snow. The mountain never gets old.
Some things never get old.
Evening Dynateleing through powder-graced forest. Never mind the rocks.
Not long after taking the last photo above came the highlight of my day. I temporarily eschewed my new partners for solitude among the pines. I entered one of the many clearings in the forest, effortlessly moving through a foot of (temporarily) rock free powder, alternating the occasional kick with a rocking glide, as the setting sun lit the sky and Mt. Hood with shades of red and orange. Felt right.
Other things (re)learned – If skiing boilerplate with someone who’s not done much of it, make sure they know how to self-arrest on skis (Get your skis under you, across the fallline, and skidding. Digging the pole tips in or using a Whippet may aid significantly in this process.). – Rimed up volcanoes are potentially unskiable at times. – Never, ever, follow a steep traverse over cliffs led by someone whose snow sense you don’t trust. – Skis can sometimes take a surprising amount of abuse without blinking.
Ice
November 25, 2008 at 4:46 pm | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a CommentIt’s slippery and beautiful.
Wy’east floats above blue ice on the Lunch Counter on Sunday.
It took me almost ten minutes to move fifty feet from where I took the above photo. Skins and ski edges only barely held on the curiously refrozen surface. Crampons went on the feet minutes later.
Gut
November 22, 2008 at 10:24 am | In Life, Skiing | Leave a CommentGoing with my gut, when it speaks up, usually turns out well – today is no exception. I’m excited.
Adams!
Focus
November 21, 2008 at 2:17 am | In Drivel, Skiing | Leave a CommentIt’s scattered but intense. When I’m not interacting with friends, especially when I should be getting work done, much of my mind is focused on the character of a single slope high in the Cascades. Snow’s coming down right now up there, but it’s not under the most ideal of conditions.
Wind’s zipping across the face at ~40mph and it’s cold, probably ~15 F. It’s probably making windboard that’s not well bonded to the icy layer below it. It’ll settle and bond some during the day tomorrow, and then the cycle will repeat in the afternoon/evening, followed by a deep freeze Saturday, where nothing but perhaps faceting will occur. Sunday it’ll warm up, and about 11 am, it’ll get some sunhit. When that happens, it’ll temporarily become a place I won’t want to be. Somewhere lower on the face, there’ll probably be 1,500 vertical feet of 38 degree powder cross-loaded into shallow chutes. It might be delectable.
Perhaps I just talked myself out of skiing the Southwest Chutes on Adams. The South Spur’s going to be windraked and icy but safe, save for the ice. I just don’t know if the standard line’s pulling me hard enough. But if not the Chutes, where should we go in this new and thin snowpack? North? But where? The diamond on the North Ridge? I really want no part of glaciers right now, otherwise Eldo’d be nice, as would B-P. If the Nisqually Chutes are filled in from last weeks’ storms, then they’ll suffer from many of the same properties that make the Southwest Chutes avy-spooky.
The Southwest Chutes, contrast enhanced to show tracks and a big wet slab.
Getting the Chutes in powder would be fun, but I don’t know if this is the weekend to do it. I’m also leery of skiing it in these conditions with partners, as there are no safe zones anywhere in the vertical 3/4 of a mile of chute….
Telemetry says 8″ at Stevens, in a convergence zone.
Signs
November 20, 2008 at 8:03 am | In Drivel, Skiing | Leave a CommentThe trendline on my barometer has been crashing for about a day. The sky just now as I woke up was a deep and forbidding red. The forecasters have twice hedged their bets upward a little bit in terms of precipitation totals. All good things, though after a double wallop of weather over the next two days, there’s nothing else coming…
All good things come to those who wait.
Good things, right now, courtesy of the NPS.
Science?
November 19, 2008 at 9:19 am | In Drivel, Skiing | Leave a CommentThis hardly seems objective:
ALAS... ANOTHER VIGOROUS PACIFIC STORM WILL BRING MORE PRECIPITATION AND GUSTY WINDS TO THE AREA ON FRIDAY.
The facts look a little better than depressing…
THURSDAY...MORNING RAIN OR SNOW...TAPERING OFF TO SHOWERS IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW ACCUMULATION 4 TO 8 INCHES. SNOW LEVEL FALLING TO 3500 FEET. .FRIDAY...PERIODS OF RAIN OR SNOW. SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL POSSIBLE. SNOW LEVEL 3000 FEET. AFTERNOON PASS TEMPERATURES IN THE MID 30S. SOUTHEAST WIND IN THE PASSES 5 TO 15 MPH. .FRIDAY NIGHT...EVENING RAIN OR SNOW...THEN SHOWERS LIKELY. BRISK WEST WINDS IN THE PASSES. SNOW LEVEL 2000 FEET.
I’m beyond prognostication, but this’d be mighty fine if it happened (especially if it doesn’t warm up next week, as forecast….).
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