October 20, 2001, Muir Snowfield, Mt Rainier NP

A few of us headed up to the Muir snowfield on Saturday (fourth weekend in a row for me up there), hoping to get up above the clouds and find some fresh snow. We were above the clouds in bright sunshine the whole day, but were a little disappointed that Friday's wet weather had deposited barely a trace of new onto the snowfield, but the coverage is still great with all but one tiny crevasse totally covered on the upper snowfield.

We arrived at Muir about 1:00 and napped in the sun for about an hour before heading down. The top 500 feet was still quite icy, but it was smooth enough that it wasn't too bad. From Moon Rocks down we had stellar corn snow. I'm guessing by the weather that is occuring on the mountain today, anyone up there skiing on Sunday will have a vastly different trip report, hopefully they found some powder.

One note, the boot track going up passes through two short rocky sections between the lower and upper snowfields, if you want to save your ski edges, stay skiiers right just about twenty feet from the boot track when it looks like the upper snowfield is coming to an end, you can find a skiable line that connects to the lower snowfield without taking your skis off.

Pete Alderson