Forum Index > Trip Reports > Mazama Ridge - Mount Rainier, WA (3/17/02)
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catwoman
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Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 888 | TRs | Pics
Location: somewhere near Tacoma
catwoman
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PostSun Mar 17, 2002 9:58 pm 
My friend and I seemed to take forever to get to Rainier this morning.... stopping for gas, stopping for food... when they didn't have what we wanted we went somewhere else for food... backtracked a smidge to buy chains... stopping to get trekking poles and shopping at the 1/2 price sale while we were there in Ashford ..... Whew! Finally managed to get to Longmire at about 11:00am but we really didn't miss out on much because the road to Paradise wasn't open yet. They opened it around 11:30, we chained up and went on our way. The sun came out about the time we reached Paradise. Yay! So gorgeous up there! The parking lot wasn't full at all. Headed to Mazama ridge and thankfully there was a group of three skiers ahead of us. Thankfully because all previous tracks were long gone and the snow was DEEP! Even with them breaking trail ahead of us, it sure seemed like we were still sinking a lot. Maybe or maybe not, but it was more work than normal on this route today. Beautiful fresh snow but very tough going. On the steep slope up to the ridge, we were up to about our thighs in snow. Very soft and sinky snow. Got to about, I don't know, maybe 50 ft from the top of the ridge and the 3 skiers stopped to ski down. We broke trail to the top and that was a bit of a challenge in itself -- the snowdrifts were very obtrusive. Of course I had this brainy idea to grab a hold of one of the tree branches to pull myself forward - only to get myself dumped on by a heavily snow-clad tree. rolleyes.gif Rebecca took over the lead from there tongue.gif (that was my plan agree.gif ) and proceeded to the ridgetop. Because of the late start and the slow going, we decided to make that our destination and sat for lunch. About a minute later (literally), the sun vanished and the clouds and snow rolled in like someone snapped their fingers. From sunny blue skies, to no visibility. We barely touched our lunches before we got ourselves back together to head back down. Going down didn't seem much easier. I was such a clutz in the deep snow and managed to fall a few times and have a heck of a time getting myself up. One of the times, Rebecca tried to help me up and got herself in the same predicament. We must have looked like quite the pair! Anyway, back to the car. We ran into some friends that were hoping to do some ice climbing at Narada Falls (or in that area), and they said they couldn't get to the ice because the snow was too deep and tough going. Sort of a short trip in distance, but a great day! Glad we got to entertain ourselves (and if anyone else was watching, I'm sure we entertained them, too) in the mountains this lovely St. Patty's Day!

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Forum Index > Trip Reports > Mazama Ridge - Mount Rainier, WA (3/17/02)
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