June 12, 2011, Muir Firnspiegel to Nisq. bridge

Zach and I had it in our minds to ski from Muir to the bridge even though the coverage at the bottom looked pretty sparse.  Conditions were cool, so we didn't hurry up to Muir (thinking that a little more warming might be good).  We regretted dallying when the clouds rolled in about 1:00 and chased up the last few hundred feet.  After waiting for a visibility window that didn't come, we left Muir about 2:20.  The upper snowfield was perfect fernspiegel snow.  Great skiing even if visibility was only 100 feet or so.  We followed tracks to what we thought was the main Nisqually Chute.  Turns out it was 2 chutes to the west, and some interesting route-finding was required partway down to get back to the main chute.  We decided to call it the "whiteout variation" of the chute.  Conditions in the chute were ok (not too much sloughing) but there was lots of dodging of debris and runnels.  We stuck to the right side of the river on the way down and had to resort to bushwhacking 2-300 yards short of the bridge.  But that must have taken 40 minutes.  There's a special kind of misery that can only come from exhausted bushwhacking with skis on back.  Lots of things didn't happen just as we planned, but it was a fine adventure.

Skiing to the bridge may be done (for people with any more sense than us).  But we might have done better crossing over the left bank once the snow became patchy.