I went to work this morning at 8. At 8:45 neither my boss nor the people I was supposed to meet that morning were in, so with nothing but blue skies outside my window I decided to do a training climb up to Camp Muir.

I'd have to hurry - my guidebook says it's an 8 hour round trip and I didn't make it to Paradise until 12:00pm. I'd gazed at Rainier the entire way from Seattle to Longmire, but somewhow the mountain had become enveloped in clouds during my drive from Longmire to Paradise. It was literally overcast conditions as I made my way up from the parking lot.

Traversing across steep slopes covered with slushy, unstable snow, I was in no mood to attempt to navigate to Camp Muir by map and compass through the clouds. I turned back after about 45 minutes and headed home. On the way back I noticed a lot of thundercloud accumulation over both the Olympics and Cascades.

This fine sunny Monday found me huffing and puffing my way up to Camp Muir, well almost! The Longmire gate was opened at 7:15AM and I hit the snow at 8AM. Not much of a rut yet as many folks over the weekend had used snowshoes. An ice axe was handy getting up the frozen snow at Pan Point. Not too hot, not too cold, with a nice breeze. My legs turned to rubber at Anvil Rock above 9,000' and the snow was beginning to soften so I headed down around 12:30PM. Ski poles are always nice for the descent. Got back to the lot at 2:30PM with the last 500 ft spent wallowing in the knee-deep slush. Where are those snowshoes when you need them'

Laura and I decided to head up to Paradise and try to get in one last snowshoe trip for the season. We thought we'd head up to Panorama Point and decide from there if we wanted to continue up to Camp Muir. It turned out to be a beautiful day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. At Panorama Point we took in the views of Mt Adams and Mt St Helens. As we were about to leave for Muir we were suprised by running into Gary Z., a fellow crew leader for WTA. We all decided to head up to Muir together. This was my first trip up to Muir and about 700' from the camp I was starting to tire but I stuck with it and 5 hours after leaving Paradise we all reached the camp. The views were awesome. Besides Adams & St Helens we could also see Mt Hood. The views are well worth the trip.

9 miles - 4,600' - 7hrs round trip

Hiked to Camp Muir, enjoying beautiful views of the Nisqually Glacier and the Tatoosh Range. The snow was great for walking, and great for skiing below 9000 feet (just doable above). We saw climbers descending from the summit along Gibralter Rock. Back at the car, we watched a big release of snow from the Nisqually. It sent plumes of ""snow-dust"" over to startled hikers on the Muir snowfield! A great day out.