Saturday January 4th 2024 Mt. Rainier Nordic Patrol Report

[Sid]

Low visibility day (picture attached), but the team covered some good ground and made lots of visitor contacts.

Patrol Summary:

- Team Members: Spencer, Martell, Jen, me

- Road Status: Went up on admin at 8:30am, opened to public at 9am and closed earlier (4pm to downhill traffic) due to weather

Conditions: Variable, but overall heavy, wet snow (not as bad as on Sunday, but still). We overall found a (surprisingly) stable and right side up snowpack. There was 8"-12" of fresh snow on a pretty firm crust underneath. We didn't see any recent avalanche activity or too much windloading.

Details: Our plan was to go up Edith Creek basin and assess. We did a couple of laps making visitor contacts around Alta vista and down at the basin. After which we crossed over the bridge (poles were in good condition) and Martell and Spencer navigated us over towards Mazama ridge where we dropped down and went back up to 4th crossing (checked on the pole) before turning around and heading back. 36 visitor contacts for the day - nothing too noteworthy.

Matt already covered the house and the car, so I won't do that here.

- Sid