At the hut

Once there, I took a few minutes to sit and rest and eat some energy bars to re-energize myself for the turns that lay ahead of us. The last person in our party arrived about a half hour after that and by this time the thin liner socks that I was wearing became obviously too minimal for keeping my feet warm. We gave him a few minutes to take some pictures and get some water and food and then we started locking down our boots and clicking our skis on. It was time to test the snow.

One other person, who arrived a little after me, ascended the hump west of Muir and descended the Gibralter Chute increasing my confidence in the stability of the snow below the hut.

Future Runs?

Our first turns were in dreamy powder that could only be found at elevation such as these in the state, with nearly knee-deep turns in a perfect light blanket of white. We descended with the intention of skiing the Nisqually Chute down to the glacier and out to the bridge that crossed the river at an elevation of about 3400'. We worked our way to the right down to where the entry of the chute was at 8400' where Jerry was able to watch another set of skiers struggle on crust and ice. With conditions in the chute obviously sketchy we continued descending along the path we had came, back down to Paradise a little disappointed.

The weather had kept itself at bay to the South and so far only a small dusting of new snow was falling, most likely blown off of higher slopes. As we hit the final slope below Pebble Creek though, the clouds engulfed us and brought the visibility down to near zero. We followed the obvious skin track back down to the parking lot so that we would not end up off bearing and going down to far.

Scoping the line

Once back at the parking lot, we piled back into what would have been our shuttle and made the quick trip back to pick up the other car. On the way out we stopped at the Copper Creek Inn and had a feast of some of the largest hamburgers this side of the Cascades.

As a funny side note, and older lady approached us while we were beginning to eat and asked, "Were you the four that we watch at the Visitors Center skiing down from Camp Muir?" After a hesitant acknowledgment, the obviously impressed women complemented us all and wished us to enjoy our well deserved meal. Blushing, we all modestly joked about how we all felt that it was no big deal. Seriously though, I bet on busy day with better weather there would be literally hundreds of people skiing those slopes. That is Muir for you.