Feb 23, 2008, Mt. Rainier,Muir to Nisqually Bridge

A Three hour tour. Actually a little over 3 hours to Muir, but the Gilligan's Isle theme song was in my head skinning up. Left Paradise around 10, arrived at Muir a little over 3 uneventful hours later. The trail left by those who started before me was very nice- never had to carry my skis. Above Pan Point there was maybe an inch or two of unconsolidated snow, punctuated by patches of firm Styrofoam. Weather was nice enough to travel in shirt sleeves. Beautiful views of the southern volcanoes, all sporting lenticular formations. Ran into Scott and Gregg from Seattle and points North I believe- fellow lurkers on TAY. Thank for breaking trail guys! Brief but interesting conversation over lunch as our fingers froze then headed down. Cloud cover had come down the mountain to about 9700', so the descent began in flat light and a gray out- good to induce vertigo but not great for skiing. Skied in parallel as it seemed to work better than tele given that I coal not see the constant and random transitions from powder to hard pack and back. As noted a few days ago- not much in the way of sastrugi, for which I was thankful. Below about 9700' clouds broke and skiing was a bit more reasonable. Entered the main Nisqually chute at 8200'. Snow had not really corned up in the upper chute, but it held an edge well enough to be tele-heaven hop turning all the way down. Looking back up at my tracks I noticed the chute to the skier's right seemed to have a good deal of avy debris. Below the chute the snow was soft/corn all the way to the bridge. Skied left of the terminus simply because everyone else went right. It was glorious and wonderful and big and bright and beautiful and I had the valley all to myself!!!! Was able to snag a ride back to Paradise after 10 minutes or so.  Always one of my favorite tours. Sorry I forgot my camera- the views were spectacular.