Sept 3, 2006- Muir Snowfield (again, as well)

     Left Seattle at 5:30 am, in an attempt to beat the inevitable holiday crowds; was rewarded with the fourth or fifth parking spot. Cruised on up (finally broke 3 hrs, a silly goal for the year). Snow starts at ~7600 ft, with one carry; the fresh snow from last week was mostly gone, but a few patches of fairly clean snow were evident. Saw a pair of skiers on their way up on the far side of the snowfield, along with a family of four hiking up alpine gear- nice folks. I had to hike pretty far (skier's) right to find snow from Muir; there's quite a bit of dirt just below camp. The first 800 ft or so was some of the most varied surfaces I've ever been on- blue ice puddles surrounded by sun caps and sastrugi, mixed with patches of corn, hard glacier ice- it looked like the surface of some alien moon. Yeeehaw, September!
The rest of the way down was pretty nice, with reasonably smooth snow. I stopped to chat with the first fifteen or so folks hiking up, "Did you go skiing!??!?!??!" but then was forced to just say "Yes" while running down the trail...
All in all, pretty damn good for late, late season!