February 22, 2008, MRNP, Nisqually Glacier

With just a little bit of fresh snow, a stable snowpack and some sunshine in the forecast, alpymarr and i decided that a tour of the nisqually was in order. arrived to an almost empty parking lot, but a slow start packing up, liquid carb loading, and using the public restrooms allowed us the opportunity to see truckloads (literally) of innertubes, innertubers, and overdressed snowshoers to invade the peaceful parking lot. It was evident that the Park(ing) Rangers don't like packing in the cars...

Skinned up to the edge of the slope down to the nisqually near the base of pan face, booted up a ways and made first tracks down a new favorite quickie stash to the glacier. skinned up to a fine serac with a person-sized keyhole through it and had a little picnic among the seracs. skinned up to the base of the rocks that separate the nisqually and wilson glaciers and inspected a several-ton ice chunk (with boulders inside) that left a 2-3 ft. deep trench behind it... clouds started moving in, and we wanted to make turns before the sun went behind the ridge and the 1" of freshies over carvable crust turned to a skating rink, so we quickly put away the skins and made tracks. the closer we got to the parking lot, the worse the snow became, until it was possibly the worst post-holed cascade concrete i've ever boarded. survival turns...

here's a link to the pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Graham.Parrington/NisquallyGlacierTour