November 17, 2001, Muir, Mt. Rainier

Beautiful day, we were above the clouds. The mountain looked real nice--all new, bright white (Even Cathedral and other high rock faces were plastered white with rime ice from 100+ mph winds this week). The foot of rain the last week essentially wiped out much of the snow below 7,000 feet. Friday it rained at 9,000 ft. Friday night left a couple of inches of new snow down to 4,500 feet. We carried skis a couple of miles and 2,000 vf to above Pebble Creek, then skinned up to below Moon Rocks where the new powder was just a skiff over super hard super slick ice. A couple of ski moutaineers told us they cramponed down from Camp Muir to Pebble rather than ski. From where we stopped to Pebble creek was really nice, a couple of inches of new and a bunch of wind-transported rounded crystals yielding a total of 2-6 inches of powder above a highly finished concrete base. Skiing was fast and smooth. We traversed to ski down east of Panorama Point to about Golden Gate, where we put our skis on our packs above Golden Gate and walked out the remaining 1.5 miles.

Andy Carey