Camp Muir

Wow what an amazing day! Decided LATE last night to skip school today and head up to Rainier because of fantastic weather reports and itchy legs. I drove up during the night (no traffic-hooray) and reached the locked gate at Longmire at about 1:15 AM hoping that this late in the season the gate would be opened before the 8:30 time I've always heard quoted for winter. Nope, 8:30 right on the dot. I spent a lot of time waiting in my car trying to sleep piecing together probably four or five hours total (don't ever seriously try to sleep in a 95 Pontiac Grand Am). Finally, at 8:30 I headed up a bare and dry highway to Paradise that had absolutely no reason to be closed until 8:30.

Lots of snow around the Paradise parking lot. That will take some serious time to melt off this year. Started up the ""trail"" at about 9:10 or so under perfectly clear blue skies and completely calm conditions. Even at this hour, it was warm enough to hike with just long underwear and a T-shirt and no gloves or hat, and it only got warmer throughout the day. I never put my gloves or hat on, even at 10,000 foot Camp Muir.

Snow conditions were perfect, very firm due to low overnight temperatures. Although I had a pair of MSR Ascents with me I never used them or crampons although taking snowshoes is highly advisable just in case it isn't as perfect when you go as when I did.

Made very good time up to the steep section leading to Panorama Point where I had to slow down for obvious reasons. Avalanche danger along the route is minimal to non-existant right now. Made some more good time until the real uphill toil of the Muir Snowfield began to bog me down. There were some icy sections in this area where snowshoes or, better yet crampons, would have been helpful, but I was just too lazy to put them on for those fairly short stretches of ice.

Right about here I saw two successive ice avalanches roaring down the Nisqually Icefall. One of them was really quite large and loud and scary. No worries, those can't reach you on the Muir Snowfield (but that did make me wonder how anyone ever safely climbs the Nisqually Icefall; those two avalanches were fairly early in the morning, before the heat of the day could really get to the snowpack).

Warning: the Muir Snowfield is much longer and gains much more elevation (4700 feet from Paradise to Camp Muir) than it appears to. Those of you who have been there before know what I'm talking about, all the rest, take heed.

After four hours of toil (the last 25 agonizing minutes with the shelter in sight), I finally reached Camp Muir. Seeing as though this is my first really taxing trip of the year, I don't think four hours was all that bad, of course I also nearly fell down on the ground wanting to die when I got to the top. Elevation isn't good for me, I felt 20 times better once I got down about 1500 feet.

Conditions still fantastic even at the top; absolutely no wind! I did have the feeling though that I was being rapidly baked by the sun while simultaniously being flash frozen by the thin 10,000 foot air of late April.

After taking a few pictures, I headed down, greatly aided by the softening of the snow by the sun (it was really quite easy and I always felt completely comfortable even though I was alone). 4700 feet later I arrived tired but happy in the Paradise Parking Lot. Great day.