June 19, 2004, Muir Snowfield
6/19/04
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2211
0
With the hot weather forecast, and going solo, I decided to join the crowd at Muir. Driving route warning: Road work on SR161 caused a long detour this weekend near Eatonville and might cause delays or other detours in coming weeks. Consider an alternate route from the north to Paradise. So, I arrived at an almost full lot at Paradise at 8:45, got to Camp Muir at 12:45 with the surface of the snow just melting. Skinning was much better than postholing into the soft stuff below. Passing clouds kept the snow in better shape than I expected. I bumped into climbing buddy James from Eatonville at the beach at Muir, and caught up with him for lunch. Then down at 1:15 in really nice corn snow, still a little hard and drifted right at Muir, but no sun cups, then smooth and plenty of lightly tracked areas down to 7K. From there it got mushy. Worth the skin up to higher ground.
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