Weather was great, exactly as forecasted. Clear skies all day, in the low 20s and quite windy in certain spots. I was able to clearly see down to Hood, which seems rare for me, usually too much haze or clouds or whatever. But not today, it was lovely.
Snowshoes were not really needed, lots of people just microspiking all the way up to Pan Point. I had my snowshoes and I'd rather carry them on my feet, then my pack, so I wore them pretty much the whole time, but things were packed down enough that they weren't doing much.
Once on top of Pan Point, that's where it got super windy and was blasting pretty good, a couple folks turned around before the top because of the wind. I kept heading up to McClure rock and it actually mellowed out a bit once you got near there. I turned around at McClure worried about catching the outbound gate in time, but still had more than enough time when I got down. So I wished I had gone further -- at least to Sugarloaf, which wouldn't have been much more.
Glissading down Pan Face was sort of futile. Way too slick for my tastes, plus trying not to smash into the tons of people, meant, I would slide for about 5 feet, then self arrest. I kinda gave up and just slid on my side, sort of half self arresting the rest of the way. I'm sure folks were thinking "That's not how you do it." Ha ha.
All in all, great trip. The nordic patrol folks were all out and I had a great time talking with them. Thanks for all you do to help keep us safe!
My only minor gripe of the day, is when people stop in the middle of the boot pack/main trail to take breaks or layer adjustments or whatever and make us all walk around them in the loose or angled snow. If you're gonna stop, it's polite to move off the main trail :-) That seemed super common today, whole families basically just standing there in the middle of the trail.
Comments