November 3, 2010, Muir in sunshine for a change

After yesterday's Muir report and the usual annoyance of nice forecast during week, decided it was worth burning one of the last vacation days of the year on touring, even if there is promise of powder days ahead. Also had it burning in me to actually be able to see the damn mountain, in contrast to my previous two attempts in September and October.

Initially, didn't seem like a good investment. Sure there is decent snow cover right from the parking lot, but it is mighty manky stuff. Went OK once found others skin tracks to follow. Winter route up Pan Pt was mushy and pretty thin. But once over Pan Pt, improvement as an underlying crust started to show up.

It was really warm, with no wind,  and completely clear. What's the appropriate hybrid name - Nogust? Julvember? Saw probably 6 other skiers. I had a late start, didn't leave lot til 1 PM. The lack of wind encouraged me to try for Muir, otherwise I might have left before topping out to make sure it didn't crust up. I made Muir just at 5 PM - happy hour. Muir was flatout deserted, and only here did the wind kick up and get chilly. The excellent "White Castle" look from the previous TR was unfortunately gone.

The snow: top 500 ft was just a little sastrugi'd, with ice nodules on the edges, but it was soft and not too plated so easy enough to just icebreak through. Then, on skiers right main Muir snowfield, some really unusual but good snow, almost like a firnspiegel but with more buttery snow as opposed to corn underneath. Lower Muir to Pebble Creek also good but different - a fast 1" butter layer on a pretty strong crust. All in all one of the funnest runs down the Muir snowfield I've ever had, both because of this unusual snow condition and because this was already pretty late in the day, beautiful golden light with less than 45 min to sunset.

Transition from Pebble to Pan I managed to hit several rocks and was glad to have brought the beaters. Then down Pan, bad to the point of scary bonch. It  really is moguling up in a way because no one wants to make their own track, everyone follows the known safe and packed down set of turns. Calling that snow Death Bonch might be too severe given the limited steepness. But maybe Ortho-bonch would be appropriate. And even with having to deal with the Ortho-Bonch it was possible to get from the top of Pan Point to the parking lot in ~15 min., so I'll take that over walking down the trail skis on back, as have often had to do recently.

Made it to car before sunset and watched the mountain and Tatoosh get painted in some really nice light. Not one but two Swiper-foxes patrolling the parking lot. One got within 10 feet of my car while I was stashing my gear; I threw a snowball at it and it licked the snowball, hmm.