July 8, 2001, Nisqually Chutes, Mt. Rainier

By the time they stopped showing up we had 7 peops for skiing at Paradise and, get this, five of them were ttips posters. Not too shabby a showing, says I. With that many independent thinkers a 100% consensus was unlikely. Eric, Lori and Pete headed for Muir and the remaining four headed for the chutes. Dana, Robie and the "Lungs with Legs", Charles, climbed up above the main chute (entry at about 8200) to about 9,000 to get a few more turns and kill time while waiting for the geezer (guess who). I cut directly for the chute to save time so that we could get down it before it got sun baked enough to slide. I dug a pit while waiting for the kids playing above and found a hard refrozen ice layer under 4 to 6" of softer older snow. Didn't look like any danger today (unless a boulder rolled down on you; Eric and Lori did watch a large one go by them later in the day). The upper end of the chute made us pay attention with a 42 degree slope, a rock obstacle course and a left dogleg to contend with. Nothing a hotdog would slow down for, but enough to slow a geezer to a stop here and there. It likely will not be skiable for either in another week. Once past the dogleg it was corn cruzin' for nearly 2,000 VF. By the time we got back up to the base of Pan, Eric and Lori called and said they were headed down from Muir to do the chute and wanted a report, so we waited to watch them ski it. From the base of Pan we skied down (albeit carefully) to the cross trail at the top of Deadhorse Creek valley, about 200 yards from the parking lot (that won't be doable next week either). Some pics are available for those of you looking for a snow fix at