Sharing the view of the Great PNW

[C5 Golfer]

To all you East Coasters that have not seen the Great Mountain called Mt Rainier. Here is a view from the top of Crystal Mountain ski area at about 6500 ft looking at 14,400 ft high Rainier. It is such a great picture I had to share it.

[Gleb]

where is it?

[D-Sub]

GLEB! Youve GOT to be kidding! a)you went to school (Mt Rainier is one of the highest volcanoes) b)you know google, dontcha?

[Gleb]

i guess i'm ignorant as they come. for some reason my google isnt working. My school network is under construction and only the sites that i visited very recently work. its funny how they send us emails that the network is under maintnance to our emails, when we cant check our emails....

school network makes me sick

[D-Sub]

HA! thats a beaurocracy for ya!

so...Mt Rainier is in washington. It's BIG...much bigger than surrounding peaks...totally stands out pretty much anywhere in WA

glad you guys are havin a good season C5. last year was sad.

[thomas_m]

My snow report from Crystal on Thursday that I posted to our local board. Here's the trail map for reference:

Crystal Mountain, WA

01/12/06 Crystal RoXors

Crystal was killer today. Low crowd factor, deep pow, faceshots all damn day.

Meant to go to Baker but I was still tired when I woke up from Wed night's pow-wrestling on Wildside at Snoqualmie West. Just too tired to do the Baker round-trip solo so headed for Crystal instead.

Got to ChinookXP right at nine and headed straight up the RainierXP. There was a layer of high overcast and the sun was just shining through. Lots of clean knee to thigh pow everywhere, headed down Iceberg ridge a ways and dropped in Sunnyside skiers left of the lift and wove through the trees. Ended up bouncing back and forth all morning between the steeper trees on skier's right of RainierXP over to Iceberg Ridge/Exterminator.

'Bout 10:00AM it started snowing, by 10:30 it was dumping and the wind started blowing hard. Vis up top was a little tough but the dumping snow and wind were filling in the tracks very fast so there were freshies to be found every run. My legs were sore when I started from Wed night at West and by lunch they were fuggin' toasted.

Ate my (now squished in my pocket) banana and drank a Powerade then started hitting the sides of the groomed runs where there were knee deep freshies everywhere. Not many were riding the Bull Run - Lower Exterminator runs and over on skiers left the pow was deeeeep. I was on the bigass 178cm so it was surf city baybee.

I said 'last run' to myself for about three top to bottom runs before I fell on my frickin ass getting out of my bindings at the bottom. Decided to call it a day and crawled to the car. I still basically suck at riding steep pow but the dumps we've been getting lately are sure helping.

My ride was covered in about 4" of pow. It was still dumping when I left all the way down to about a mile before you come to Skookum Falls where it turned to frozen rain.

If you can go tomorrow, it'll probably be even better if it stays cool.

T.

[jayj]

When'd you snap that photo of Rainier? Is that from before the ~27 straight days of rain over Seattle or did it actually clear up for a moment? It always did impress me how big that mtn is. Even though it is farther from Seattle than Hood is from Portland, its just incredibly massive.

[Jon Dahl]

For those not in the know, Rainier is the best place to climb stateside if you want to simulate Hymalayan conditions. It can be deceptively easy on the trade route, and it can try to kill you if you don't pay attention. For anyone who climbs Colorado '14ers, this is a whole different world. For the few who have boarded off of it, my hat's off to you.

[P06781]

Crystal mtns views of Rainer are awesome ! This place has some of the best views in the NW .

Jim

[C5 Golfer]

Crystal mtns views of Rainer are awesome ! This place has some of the best views in the NW .

Jim

Great Photo Jim-- When you are there looking at it in person it kinda takes your breath away.

I was up there today on my Prior 179 4X4 and it was epic. Similar to what Thomas above said. Steep and deep powder snow that was so soft and forgiving. I had a Banner day - floated on the soft fresh stuff to carving on the groomed at high speed. WOW!
Looking forward to a meet on the 22nd up there with a few of us. See you there Art!

[Art]

The pic does not do it justice. The mountain is much closer than it appears in the photo. Al, sounds like a great day. I hope the weather holds for another week. Im in for sure. Art

[P06781]

The pic does not do it justice. The mountain is much closer than it appears in the photo. Al, sounds like a great day. I hope the weather holds for another week. Im in for sure. Art

Yea, the valley between Mt Ranier and Crystal must drop 4000Ft then back up 7000ft higher than the top (10000ft difference). Its really a quite impressive change in scale.

Jim

[C5 Golfer]

The pic does not do it justice. The mountain is much closer than it appears in the photo. Al, sounds like a great day. I hope the weather holds for another week. Im in for sure. Art

Art, I just saw the weather report. First - Mt Baker is closed due to tooooooo much snow 9 feet in 2 days. Tonight The cascades is expecting 2 more feet. It is supposed to stay this way till Sat.
Sunday will be epic again I think. My Prior 179 4X4 is smiling at me.

Which board you going to ride? .
AL

[Art]

Ax 177 has been my board of choice this year. I think it might actually clear up for sunday but it's all good to me!

[oldvolvosrule]

I like the last pic of Rainier with that big ol lenticular cloud hangin above it. YOu know that the wind is howling at the peak when you get those kinds of clouds!!

[dbrsb]

from hiking around Paradise at Mt Rainier, it has about 35 sq miles of ice/glacier on the top of it. It gave off beautiful hues of blue in the sunlight in the summer.