November 7, 2010, Mt Rainier, Camp Muir
11/7/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
1672
1
Al, and David (aka Dynamisfit) and I headed up to Muir on Sunday. The parking lot temperature was around 32F at 10AM. The snow was well consolidated and coverage was enough to ski out. When we started out, visibility was really good. A look at Rainier revealed a north-westerly flow that almost seemed to push clouds down towards the Muir Snowfield.
As we approached Panorma Point clouds came in more heavily, and once we reached Panorma Point visibility became very limited. We ran into a couple of parties who decided to either give up or run a few laps around Pan Point due to the poor visibility. Equipped with 3 GPS units (yes, we are geeks) and having been up on the Snowfield dozens of times, we decided to push ahead. Around 8500ft things started to look a lot more promising. The clouds started to open up from time to time giving way to the sun and much better visibility. At 9500ft we were mostly out of the clouds, though the wind had gotten much stronger. I would say about 20-30mi, still north-westerly. So at least we werent heading into the wind. We finally reached Muir after 4 hours and 20 minutes. Even though there were strong winds, the Muir weather station registered none (?) based on the chart.
We took a quick break in the hut which had some snow in the entrance way. I wondered if this was normal or if somebody might have accidentally left the door open. On the way out, I took a couple shovels full of snow out. I figured if everybody does this, we might be able to empty it out
The ski down was amazing. There were about 2 to 3 inches of wind packed powder on top of a nice base down to about 7500ft. Below that, the snow turned slowly into a more solid consistency, but still not terrible. Visibility was still really good especially considering what I had prepared myself for on the way up: a ski out that relied on extrasensory perception.
On the entire trip, we only took skis off once at the crossing just below the Sugarloaf to cross over to Muir Snowfield proper.
All in all a really fun trip. It turned out much better than I could have hoped for.
As we approached Panorma Point clouds came in more heavily, and once we reached Panorma Point visibility became very limited. We ran into a couple of parties who decided to either give up or run a few laps around Pan Point due to the poor visibility. Equipped with 3 GPS units (yes, we are geeks) and having been up on the Snowfield dozens of times, we decided to push ahead. Around 8500ft things started to look a lot more promising. The clouds started to open up from time to time giving way to the sun and much better visibility. At 9500ft we were mostly out of the clouds, though the wind had gotten much stronger. I would say about 20-30mi, still north-westerly. So at least we werent heading into the wind. We finally reached Muir after 4 hours and 20 minutes. Even though there were strong winds, the Muir weather station registered none (?) based on the chart.
We took a quick break in the hut which had some snow in the entrance way. I wondered if this was normal or if somebody might have accidentally left the door open. On the way out, I took a couple shovels full of snow out. I figured if everybody does this, we might be able to empty it out
The ski down was amazing. There were about 2 to 3 inches of wind packed powder on top of a nice base down to about 7500ft. Below that, the snow turned slowly into a more solid consistency, but still not terrible. Visibility was still really good especially considering what I had prepared myself for on the way up: a ski out that relied on extrasensory perception.
On the entire trip, we only took skis off once at the crossing just below the Sugarloaf to cross over to Muir Snowfield proper.
All in all a really fun trip. It turned out much better than I could have hoped for.
