March 5, 2005, Nisqually Chute

Friday's forecast convinced me that Sunday would be the better day.  So when I got up to blue skies this morning I knew I'd been suckered again.  My wife caught my mood and suggested that I should go skiing today.  Unfortunately it was 10 am before I rolled out of town.  

The clouds were increasing fast over Mt Rainier when I arrived at Paradise.  I cruised up to the Muir Snowfield, initially aiming for the Paradise Glacier.  I switched to the Nisqually Chute when I saw how crusty the few inches of recent snow was.  At the base of the snowfield I bumped into "gusk", a TAY'er and a friend of my brother Gordy (nice to meet you Gus).  Gus reported high winds near Anvil Rock and survival skiing below.  

I dropped into the Nisqually Chute and found pretty decent snow there. The morning sun had corned it up a little and there was enough sunshine yet to keep it soft.  The chute had a lot of little snowballs, but they were soft enough to be no problem.  I reached the Nisqually moraine with some time to spare and decided to take another run. The chute was still skinnable and was just starting to refreeze near the top when I started my second run.  Unfortunately I whacked a melon-sized rock on each run.  

I stopped in Eatonville just before sunset and the mountain had a fabulous cloud girding it--like the rings of Saturn. Oddly, the mid-day clouds had mostly disipated by evening.