Home > Trip Reports > 10/16 - 10/17 Muir Icefield - Night attempt

10/16 - 10/17 Muir Icefield - Night attempt

10/16/12
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2675
6
Posted by BrianT on 10/17/12 11:37pm
Buddy and I decided to scoot up the snowfield late Tuesday night. We left Paradise at 10:05pm. Made some slow time in the night and hit Pebble Creek around 12am. Started up from there after a short break to the first area we could toss our skis on and start skinning. We decided to start out w/o crampons. After 5 minutes of skinning and hitting ice patches, we decided to toss on the crampons and continue. We went up some, and got a bit lost and ended up on the east spine (I think) of the snowfield. We pulled out the compass and started up in the right direction. From here we found it best if we hugged the rocks as there was plenty of wind blown snow to be had on them to skin. After a few hours of this we hit 8800ft around moon rocks, and we hit  a patch of ice that my friends crampons could not bite into. We stayed here for about 10-15 minutes looking for a crossing with none to be had. At this point, since it was 3:30am, we decided to turn around and post hole it back.

If you saw the post holes from about 8800 those were ours :( To bad we didn't get a chance to ski, we were gonna ski first light hike back up and ski again but, bad events kept us from it. oh well. These were my first tours on my Dynafit TLT5 Performance, and I have 1 thing to say 'WOW' those are the best things i've put on my feet ever. However, when getting back to the car taking off the last buckle this happened.

First trip out, loved the fit of the boots, not so impressed with the durability so far. Though Proguiding is sending them back to dynafit to fix.

We were waiting for you to ski by us on our way up...

I was too, I could have made it up the icefield on my crampons, but didn't want to chance buddy getting hurt. Bro's before snow? :) Anyways, gonna head out on my scrapa's on Saturday in some fresh snow (snow level 3k) and get those remaining turns in for oct.

Ah, you bought the carbons (TLT Performance), big mistake ;-), the Mountains are more durable :-)

May I ask the question everyone is wondering.......Why so early?

In skiing I find the early worm gets frozen or has to break skin tracks all day  ;)

I left Paradise at 11:15 AM on Wednesday and started the descent from Muir around 3:15 (guess). I thought I was going to be too late to get the goods but it ending up being perfect conditions/timing (not to rub it in Brian). The ice was very edgeable and you could transition off the firm, new, wind blown snow and back to the ice without hesitation. I could see tracks from earlier in the day that did not penetrate the ice but I was able to break through the first half inch and that made all the difference. Went right up the crust without crampons. Overall it was a great ski down (with two short carries to get to Pebble). Met Amar up at camp Muir and we skied down together. It was surprising good considering how you much crust/ice was still showing. My slothiness paid off finally!

Good effort getting out there in the middle of the night. That is more motivation than I think I have ever had!

author=Dustin_B link=topic=25806.msg109148#msg109148 date=1350608596]
Good effort getting out there in the middle of the night. That is more motivation than I think I have ever had!


I agree - that takes Tay to the level Cray-Zay.  With that attitude, you'll never want for first tracks.

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10-16-10-17-muir-icefield-night-attempt
BrianT
2012-10-18 06:37:59