January 15, 2003, Camp Muir

Well, a week and a day later another Camp Muir trip report. This weeks installment ( I hope to not do weekly reports, I'd love some nasty weather to keep me at the resort) came about because of Tuesday nights forecast of "Mostly Sunny" for the mountains. But alas, overnight the forecast changed to "High Clouds". As Martha would say though , "it was a good thing"

Ascent: Got lucky for a change and arrived as the ranger was opening the gate, one car in front of me, but not for long. Got an early jump on my two friends who were going to join me, knowing that they are a LOT faster than I am. Below Pan Pt, there was several inches of creamy new snow, and I thought to myself, if the sun doesn't come out this could be nice. Went up the main chute of Pan face, skinning all the way, good sticky snow. Caught a glimpse of my pals down below taking advantage of my skin track. Can't win, if I start with them I get dropped, If I get a head start I break trail. Oh well, I was here to get a workout. The upper snowfield was windblown smooth with nice, dry, but not deep powder. Even with the head start, they caught me at Moon Rocks, and then I started to fade. Funny how everything can go wrong all at once. I was hungry, so I ate something, it almost came back up, feet felt fine a minute ago, wait now I'm getting a blister on BOTH heels. Next thing I know they're way ahead of me. Final scorecard, I got there in 3.5, 15 minutes quicker than last week. They got there in 2.5, monsters they are.

Descent- Man was I cold, but boy the skiing was fantastic, nice carvable powder all the way to the top of Pan Pt., then we went skiers right down Pan Face, and found a nice 2 inch crust over everything, traversing back left we avoided most of the crust. Best snow I've seen below Pan pt. in quite some time, thanks to the cloud cover. Hopefully I won't be back up there anytime soon, if it will just start dumping everyday!