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July 14 Muir and other places

7/15/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3066
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Posted by ovrthhills on 7/16/07 12:16am
Sidnie, Scotsman and I decided to do Muir instead of more ambitious but more distant venues.  We left the parking lot at 9:30 and hiked to Pebble Creek in an hour, where the continuous snow started. We switched to skis and skins and than Scottie decided to make it a "race" to beat the three hour time to Muir.  That was pretty much the last we saw of him until we reached Muir (us--3hr 40 m, Chris--3hr 7m) People watching at Muir was fun. There came an elderly woman who, we learned, was 80 and a child of about 8.  Especially interesting were all the various glissading set-ups from simple sheets of plastic to nice looking plastic pants. 

So, we lounged on the warm rocks and looked over at the slush cup venue at Pinacle-Castle saddle when the conversation changed to the experience of plunging into an icy pool of water on skis.  Sidnie pretended to be asleep when the discussion quickly devolved to the unfortunate affect cold water has on the male anatomy and the equally fortunate affect it has on the female form.  Then we skied down.

The skiing was bad.  I thought for a moment that I had forgotten to remove my skins as I lurched over the sun cups, runnels, glisaade chutes, and foot prints.  "Only 2500 more feet to go" I thought, after stopping to look at my altimeter.  Usually, I like to stop to savour the slope and pick the best line  for fullest enjoyment. But now I stopped just to rest my aching thighs from all the blue ice to gritty slush transitions.  Blessedly, we arrived back at Pebble Creek where we hung out and switched back to trail shoes and hiked around until we found some secret snow ;) which no one had ever skied before and actually provided a few good, steep turns
before hiking back to the parking lot through throngs of colorful tourists and wild flowers. 

Chris said the Muir Glacier was actually in pretty good shape ??? and it gets way worse. So, get it while its just bad :'( Now we are looking at cashing in frequent flier miles to Argentina. Absolutely no pictures; even if we had remembered our camera.

We were there Sunday, July 15, and our experience was quite different, in both good and bad ways.

When we left the parking lot around 9:30, there was a lenticular cloud on the summit.  By the time we got to Pebble Creek, the cloud had descended to that elevation.  We continued up through intermittent thick clouds which occasionally blew away to reveal the summit, only to get enveloped again. 

Camp Muir was cold (40 degrees) and windy (35-60 mph according to telemetry).  We put on our down jackets, hid behind the buildings, and we still shivered. It was not a good place to hang out, so we ate a  bite and headed down around 2 pm.

We stayed to skier's right below Camp Muir, where there were fewer boot tracks.  There was manageable suncupping up high, and the snow was dirty and a bit grabby, but it had a good consistency.  We had to wait at times for the clouds to lift enough to see where we were going, and we didn't get out of the again at Pebble Creek, where we took our skis off.

I'd never skied down from Camp Muir before, but I thought it was a fun cruiser yesterday.

Did you happen to get a look at the nisqually chute (far skier's right, heads down to nisqually glacier).  I was hoping to head there Saturday, but was wondering if it's still skiable.

Greg,
The chute looks pretty sketchy but skiable. Pretty narrow and rough at the top.  We thought about doing it but opted to continue our gruelling descent.  But steep slopes seem to ski way better than Muir.  What kind of wax works on grit. 

Thanks.  We'll probably give it a try.  I agree that steeper is usually better when things get gritty and grabby. 

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july-14-muir-and-other-places
ovrthhills
2007-07-16 07:16:23