Month 8 of turns all year! I knew I needed to ski the last weekend in June, and was just looking for the opportunity to get out. Luckily, my friend Rachel Warren was turning 30, and had decided to ride her bike from the sound to Paradise, and then summit Rainier from there with a bunch of her friends. Obviously I’m not a crazy person, so I just did the hike to Camp Muir with Pete, Kimber, Luke, and Alex (Luke’s sister’s boyfriend). Luke wanted to summit via the DC route, but P, K, and myself were all attempting via Emmons the following weekend. It was Alex’s first week in Washington after moving here from Michigan, his first time to Rainier, and his first time backcountry skiing. Although Muir is essentially a conga line of climbers this time of year, there’s no ski patrol ready to help you if you get hurt, and no lifts to get your butt up the hill, so I still count it as backcountry!
I’ve been up to Muir for a ski tour a couple times, so I suggested that we mix it up a bit and descend via the Nisqually Chutes. In a good snow year, you can actually descend all the way to the Nisqually bridge via the river valley. In June that’s definitely not the case. Our planned route was to transition at the base of the chutes and hike back up to Glacier Vista to enjoy a few more turns to the snow line.
Pete’s wife Kimber wasn’t skiing, and the snow didn’t start for a few hundred feet, so we set out hiking with our skis on our backs. The crowds were wild, as this was one of the first truly nice weekends of the summer. I realized that I’d never been to Paradise except for when snow went all the way to the parking lot. Loved seeing the tourists take pictures of the John Muir quote on the stairs and then get back in their cars without even setting foot on the trail! Luckily, to balance it out, there were some intrepid hikers who made it all the way up to Camp Muir in La Sportiva Nepal EVOs, GoreTex gaiters…and blue jeans. To each their own! Definitely some cringeworthy moments, but as long as people are willing to accept the downfalls of their gear choices and push through in a safe manner, who am I to judge?
Pete and I fell into step with a 50-year old Air Force contractor who was solo skiing on a visit from Colorado, and shared a nice little chat with him as Kimber, Luke, and Alex charged on ahead. Before we knew it, we had arrived at Rachel’s party’s campsite.
We enjoyed a beer, hung out in the sun and chatted, and watched Luke build a kicker to do some stunts off of – true Jerry of the Day status. Luckily, he ended up looking pretty bad-ass, so we didn’t have much to rib him about!
After wishing Rachel a happy birthday, we clicked into our skis and began the descent towards the entrance to Nisqually Chutes. It’s really easy to see from the car, but for some reason, we were very reticent to commit to the chutes. Pete scouted it out and figured where the best place to “drop in” was. By this time of day, the snow was getting a little bit grabby, so we were actually glad to be finding something a bit steeper.
We ripped down the chutes – or rather, they ripped down the chutes, and I tenderly picked my way down, as I tend to do – and then took a look back at where we had come from. This was also a cool chance for me to see where I’d come from. Skinning up to Muir was the first tour I’d ever done, in November 2015. It took me hours, and I felt exhausted and skied horribly. This time, I felt relaxed, enjoyed the skiing (even if my turns still aren’t up to snuff), and made it out with energy to spare and ready to attempt the summit the following week! Report on that coming up soon.
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