Junuary 14, 2015, Muir, MRNP

I'll admit it. One of my favorite past times, during low snow years is to get drunk at the bar and bitch about the lack of pow to anyone that will listen.

It Just so happens that this opportunity presented itself at the prefunc for the Nat Geo night at the Benaroya hall - featuring Mike Libecki and Corey Richards who presented Untamed Antarctica (if you have the opportunity to go see this when its back in seattle I highly recommend!)

I also highly recommend ordering a few "smudges" at the Elysian bar before hand!!
A foggy Wednesday morning in more ways than one, fumbling around in the dark I managed to find my ski,poles,skins and car keys!. This meant i was going skiing!

Low expectations are often easily exceeded and this was certainly the case! soft 1-2" of some type of pow? (or something very much like it) atop a firm base in glorious Junuary sun had me wondering weather I was having smudgey apparitions?? Camp Muir felt more like an Auzzie beach!

Feeling a tad woozey after some lunchtime Rainiers, I booted up to triple A with freebird and snoholic to begin our descent. The flats along the snowfield were soft and powdery and the Nisqually chutes were soft corn. I Followed freebird down for some exhilarating turns on a shot that did not disappoint!

here, at the bottom of the chutes....the smudges from last night started to catch up with me and I was feeling rather cotton mouthed. Sensibly I Had drank all my water half way up the ascent of muir. The boot back out of the nisqually felt more like the bataan death march. I told my buddies I was a gonner and urged them to leave me to die, but they stuck around. I struggled out on hands and knees for some rain runnel skiing back to Paradise, that was harder on the stomach than the legs!

Fortunately, an angel with coconut water saved my life back in the parking lot - - energy restored and enough time to enjoy a few cold rainiers before we got kicked out just before 5pm in the setting sun.