December 23, 2004, MRNP - Nisqually Chutes
12/23/04
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
1876
0
Arrived at Paradise lot to only a few cars and met other friends, totaling 3 splitters and 3 AT'ers.
Skinned out of the lot and towards panpoint with no wind and 2-4" of fresh snow on an icy base. Headed up Pan Point and find real icy conditions. Once at the top of pan point we made the traverse towards the entry point to the chutes. It appeared that someone had already made tracks down earlier that morning.
The traverse was very icy, and after carrying my diamir pons for 2 years, I was very happy to finally use them.
We got above the chutes to a flat spot and waited for the sun to corn the snow, but it never really did. Sergio (www.sverdina.com) dropped into the chute and made a few icy jump turns on his board and skated out of view. Rob and I waited for the other person to go but we never did. The conditions seemed to icy for my taste, and I decided to come back another day. Once we got past the first 500 feet of ice, we were able to find powder spots here and there and linked them up to provde ultimate happiness.
We stayed skiers right of pebble creek or whatever it might have been and found some bowls that had fresh untouched snow and got in some good lines. SInce we had to meet Sergio at the base of Pan Point we headed down Pan Point then hit a hard skiers right traverse and got more fresh tracks in some great snow conditions.
We hooked up with everyone else and then had yet another great ski down to the car. I have never experienced that before. Out of a dozen ski trips to the Muir Snowfield, this had to of been the best. Even though the objective was not conquered, Sergio told us that there were bad conditions in the chutes, with a small skift of snow on top of a very icy layer.
More images at www.cascadeguide.com
Skinned out of the lot and towards panpoint with no wind and 2-4" of fresh snow on an icy base. Headed up Pan Point and find real icy conditions. Once at the top of pan point we made the traverse towards the entry point to the chutes. It appeared that someone had already made tracks down earlier that morning.
The traverse was very icy, and after carrying my diamir pons for 2 years, I was very happy to finally use them.
We got above the chutes to a flat spot and waited for the sun to corn the snow, but it never really did. Sergio (www.sverdina.com) dropped into the chute and made a few icy jump turns on his board and skated out of view. Rob and I waited for the other person to go but we never did. The conditions seemed to icy for my taste, and I decided to come back another day. Once we got past the first 500 feet of ice, we were able to find powder spots here and there and linked them up to provde ultimate happiness.
We stayed skiers right of pebble creek or whatever it might have been and found some bowls that had fresh untouched snow and got in some good lines. SInce we had to meet Sergio at the base of Pan Point we headed down Pan Point then hit a hard skiers right traverse and got more fresh tracks in some great snow conditions.
We hooked up with everyone else and then had yet another great ski down to the car. I have never experienced that before. Out of a dozen ski trips to the Muir Snowfield, this had to of been the best. Even though the objective was not conquered, Sergio told us that there were bad conditions in the chutes, with a small skift of snow on top of a very icy layer.
More images at www.cascadeguide.com
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