July 8, 2007, Nisqually Chute

I did this as the last hurrah of a 5 day trip (see previous Hood-Adams-Rainier report) and a goodun it was.

Light hiking boots made it past Pebble Creek (where I met a couple of , then headed down around 2. The snow was . This made for some good turns, and even better pictures, with the . We continued all the way to the end of the snow (which is a sucker gully for the Chute) then climbed back up a few hundred feet to traverse down to the real thing.

The chute was in great shape, made even better by the previous skiers who had smoothed off some of the bumps. Jon had new bindings with adjustable tension that he'd set a bit too tight starting out and it had given him some trouble on the snowfield. He loosened them back to his normal tension and was ready to so I could get some (after a 30 ft. scree traverse - skis off). The clouds moved in just as we exited so we timed it just right.

We took the low route out, coming up on the moraine trail where we put the skis back on for a nice cruise down to the trail half a mile from the visitor center.

I was running low on fresh food, and the beer was gone, but Jon came through with a frosty one, and half of an incredible