Paradise Glacier

With the Longmire gate finally staying open through the night starting last week, we arrived at the Paradise parking lot and started skinning at 9AM. As usual, there were tons of people going uphill with us, but we were the first party to ski down the Paradise Glacier that day. It mostly due to the traffic it receives.

With recent warming temperatures, the snow was firm as we went up the Panorama face. Most people were booting up, but our party decided to just skin. There wasn't a very definitive skin track, and I slipped a few times on patches of icy stuff. It turns out booting is faster than skinning on the Panorama face, as usual. The view from Panorama Point was pretty good, a typical three-volcano day. There were no clouds over Mt. Hood and St. Helens, but clouds covered the tops of Adams and Rainier.

We took a break at Panorama Point, then continued skinning up. The snow was soft enough that skinning up the steep step right above Panorama Point was easy. With the recent snowfall, we could keep going all the way to the Muir Snowfield without needing to carry skis. Back in January, I had to carry my skis multiple times to reach the Muir Snowfield in this low snow year. We continued up the straightforward snow slope and decided to drop in at 9,200 ft right under Anvil Rock. Four of our party crossed a few rocks on climber's left and dropped at 9,000 ft. That also worked and saved a few feet.

We start skiing down the Paradise Glacier at 1:30 PM, the snow is a few inch soft and kinda wet snow on the top of crest, which makes pleasant skiing down. The crevasses hadn't open yet and the whole slope was covered. The view was terrific and much more pleasant than retracing the uphill route down.

We went towards skier's left while skiing down the Paradise Glacier, then traversed right after enter a basin. We want to go through the Golden Gate to back to Paradise parking lot, but we find ourselves has to ascent a hump to get to the Golden Gate. Some people just booting up, but snow is too soft that skinning up maybe faster.

After skiing down the Golden Gate, the rest of way is easy by just following the skyline trail and went over a bridge. Quickly we get back to the parking lot. A pleasant typical outing in Mount Rainier NP!