Home > Trip Reports > Nov 20, Mt Rainier, Camp Muir Wind Slab

Nov 20, Mt Rainier, Camp Muir Wind Slab

11/15/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3623
4
Posted by Andy Hill on 11/21/11 1:23am
Late opening of the gate had a couple dozen skinners working up to the snow fields with a start at 11a.  Four hours of pushing to Camp Muir had the weather go from blue sky to dark ominous clouds.  First 3K a pleasure.  Last 1.5K a breakable wind crust march into high winds.  Wouldn't wish the top ski down on my worse enemy, but survivable with a few tactical hip checks and swearing.  2-3 foot wind slabs that would sink the biggest/early rise tip around.  Last 2K down was the ridge protected new snow all were targeting.  Pretty cheery crowd, good trading of trail breaking, and nice tiring finish.  Can't ask for more of a pre-season training run.  Probably the last good shot at Camp Muir til this weather system passes and the snow moves around up there.
That looks like hard trail breaking....good job.....  but you know it's not mandatory to tag the Muir shelter.... Amar will forgive you ;)

Meanwhile, 3500 feet lower and 1km to the east, a half dozen folks desperately tried to track out a bowl filled with thigh deep, untouched powder before they ran out of daylight. But the march up to Muir sounds like it was better training :-)

I'll have to admit that I turned around about 200 ft from the shelter as my partner, Erik Henne, caught up and we noticed his nose was showing signs of frostbite.  It was pretty interesting to see somebody's nose turning paper white.  I was trying to catch up to you guys breaking trail as a goal.  Thanks to the guys breaking that trail...that was a lot of work.  The decent down was horrible...I felt like I was doing 'wall sits' the entire ride down just trying to stay on top of the snow despite having fat skis. 

Fun day in the mountains.

A great team work to get up there!  A few pictures to show the evolution of the day :)
Did not manage to clear all the ice from the webcam.

A few more pictures at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/104952785231857279993/CampMuir02

-Victor

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nov-20-mt-rainier-camp-muir-wind-slab
Andy Hill
2011-11-21 09:23:48