June 12, 2007, Camp Muir and Nisqually Chute

Left the car at 9:30 to find a pretty well frozen snowpack, sunny skies and easy booting on the cattle trail. The upper Muir snowfield was very nice skiing, starting down a little after 1 pm.  The base was firm but not icy with a very thin layer of well-adhered new snow (the rest had blown off) making fast skiing and nice carving.  Lower on the Muir as I approached the top of the Nisqually chute the new snow was a little deeper (an inch or so) and slightly moist slowing the speeds down a bit.  In the top of the chute the new snow slide with the first turn leaving  lots of small, soft snuwballs that didn't interfere with skiing and a few larger piles that were best avoided. Mainly a visual distraction. The underlying base was firm with the surface softened nicely for turning.  Lower down in the chute, the aprons on either side offered undisturbed snow which was a bit wet but still very nice skiing.  On the bottom the low angle snow was wet and slow.  The low angle snow around Alta Vista on the way back to the car late in the afternoon was so slow it had me looking for the shaded, dirty snow under trees.