April 18, 2010, Rainier, Nisqually Chutes

Becky and I headed to Rainier with no expectations other than to stretch the legs and get some sun...ended up being a great day on the hill.  Ran into a few familiar faces at Camp Muir and got to bum a ride off some friends who'd set up a car shuttle down at the bridge. 

From Muir to about 9000ft the snow was variable, slightly suncrusted shallow powder...from 9k down to 5500 via the Nisqually Chutes it was darn near perfect high-speed corn with only an occational chunk of old debris here and there in the chutes. 

Below 5500ft on the Nisqually moraine/snout the snow got sticky and finally turned to mashed potatoes, but we were still about to ski most of the way to the bridge.  There were a few ski carries amongst boulders and rotten snow descending the west side of the river...looked like staying on the east side of the river and then walking back across the bridge would still yield a continuous ski to the bridge.