Rainier 8/24 - Muir bounce fest

Duringmy typical Thursday night boredom I was trying to find out what I wanted to do Friday. I also saw a post on FB of a good friend of mine in the hospital who works at RMI so I had to see what was up with that since there were no updates from his page. (Ends up he broke his leg on Mt Stuart, and had to get choppered out. (Thanks Zach Turner for a amazing Rescue for my buddy Bryson) So, instead of going out and getting drunk and spending lots of money, I decided to opt into a Drive to Paradise in my new car (Subaru 2013 Outback). Break in the car, and go for a 'nice' ski in August. This Texas boy isn't spoiled yet with the good snow, so bad snow is good snow. This time, my goal wasn't just to ski the snow field, but to break my previous record to camp muir of 2 Hours 59 Minutes. I had my work cut out.

I started out from Paradise at a pretty fast pace, I think I made Pebble creek at about the 1hr mark which is about 15 minutes faster than my previous time. Here, there was a set of cute girls, so of course I have to sit down and take a fast lunch. After 10 minutes of sitting by the water, I pick my pack up, and trek up the snow towards muir.

Snowfield on way to Muir


Past pebble creek, I was going up at a pretty fast pace, not wanting to stop for much but maybe a 10-15 second drink of water. After a bit more of hiking I reached the last roll over and Muir is within site. Time, not where I wanted it (stupid cute girl break). At this point, I push as hard as I can, poles are getting sloppy and my legs are on fire. I crossed the rope line at camp Muir at 2 hours 50 minutes, which is 10 minutes shaved off my previous time and that included my lunch too. Would have been faster had I actually kept going then and had a camel pack. (argh)

Once at Muir I saw a chopper do a fly by, not sure what it was doing (injury?)


Locked and loaded


The ski down was a mix of WTF. The top part by Muir is a shit fest of suncups, it was funny to watch me ski them as I'm not the best skier so it's like watching me bump on mogels, I was laughing for about 1500 vert. The top 1500 ft is a mess of sun-cups about 1-2ft high, glacier blue ice, frozen crust and some corn too. Around 8k, is where the money is. There's a good strech of about 600 vert here that is really smooth, almost no cups or anything on the left side of pebble creek before the rock band. I recommend anyone going out for late skiing to just lap this and not going to Muir unless it's for a self meditation and pitty ski down from there.

There's also a bit of a patch before Pebble on the lower left side past pan point, you'd have to hike down to it, but it looked pretty smooth and I was seeing some tracks on that from previous days.

Home, sweet home.


On a side note somethings that you guys might like to hear

TUESDAY...PARTLY SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 9000 FEET.
TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 8500 FEET.
THURSDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE EVENING. SNOW LEVEL 9500 FEET.

So, with this, the upper field may be a bit better after this coming week with some fresh snow.