Paradise Sno-Camping!

Back in early January, Nels emailed everyone about doing some sort of trip on MLK weekend to a National Park. After much digital deliberation, we decided to go hardcore and spend a night in the snow on Mt Rainier. It has been many years since any of us have truly mid-winter snow camped, or built a snow-structure of any kind. So most of us were pretty rusty, and did not remember just how difficult snow camping is.

Our poor tent, in the morning.

Friday night we drove ol' Rojo Grande up to Whittaker Bunkhouse- a great place to stage the night before any trip from Paradise. The rooms are large, the hot tub is hot, the coffee is good (and the coffee girl has excellent milk...). The pillows are absolute sh*t, but nothing is perfect right?

If only Rojo knew the doom awaiting in this parking lot.

JonnE approaching camp.

There was not enough snow on the ground at Paradise to build true snow structures, so as you can see here we excavated some quarries, built some walls/trenches, and generally tried to protect our poor tents from the onslaught of wind and snow the mountain was throwing at us.

Matt shoveling furiously.

Yeah. Its snowing. And windy. And cold.

Conditions were burly/gnarly. Sub 20° temps most of the time. 10-20kts of wind in the trees, more out in the open. Continuous snow. I brought just about every single piece of gear I own, and used almost all of it to keep warm.

Dinnertime. My favorite picture of the weekend. Really captures the spirit of the adventure. Ambient temperature: 14°

Our breakfast nook, covered in snow.

On Sunday morning after a leisurely breakfast we toured a ways up towards Panorama Point.

I did say leisurely didn't I?

I should mention something about the lost snowshoer. The group he was with asked us about him very shortly after he was lost- we hadn't seen him, and wouldn't have because he was at least one full drainage north of us.  considering the weather we were very well acquainted with, its amazing he made it out alive. Good job SAR!

Matt being...well, very Matt-like.

No one told JonnE that a red jacket with blue pants is a serious fashion faux pas

Erin all like "Que?"

Spirits remained mostly high throughout the trip. One specific event really lightened the mood, you can read about it on Reddit.

Up the hill!

The tour went great- up a few thousand feet, had lunch, JonnE and I skied down while the other chumps walked.

Which way is up?

Makes it all worth it.

Possibly the worst skiing video mankind has ever produced.

The sun decided to break through for 5 blessedly warm and clear minutes. Made the whole weekend worth it. The ski descent was pretty good, but Paradise is just too flat for steepmongers like JonnE and I. Flatting out and having to walk halfway through the descent is no fun.

When we got back to Rojo, packed up and on the road, all seemed well. Until JonnE noticed the voltage meter just lazily flirting with zero. Lights stopped working...no fan operation for the heater...basically the electrical system was dead due to a dead alternator. I have to give Rojo some props though- she started up in the Paradise parking lot, being an old diesel she would keep running notwithstanding any electrical current, and got us all safely back to Ashford. Jonne found someone willing to tow the truck back to base, and Matt managed to cajole his dad into coming down and picking us up. So the rest of us headed to the only bar in Ashford (The Highlander) and drained more than a few pitchers while waiting for rescue.

Overall a great trip. Full photo album is here: http://imgur.com/a/n08O4#0