Backcountry Ski/Snowboard - Camp Muir

The goal for the day was to ski the Nisqually Chute in the best conditions possible. Getting to Muir was a plus but not required. 

Despite it being December, conditions were very spring-like and we were hoping to descend the chute in corn. 

We were unsure of the exact timing on corn and with our start time restricted by the gate, we went in with a loose game plan of heading up to the entrance and deciding on a ski it/skip it/wait depending on what we saw. 

Conditions were: 2/2/2 forecast with a wet loose problem on S aspects, mostly clear sky and an 11k freezing level.

The gate opened right after 9 and we started off towards pan face. It's a similar aspect to the chute and would serve as a good proxy slope. We found it frozen which was good news and indicated that despite the high freezing level we did get an overnight freeze. 

With pan face being frozen and chopped up from all the booters, we transitioned to skis on the back and booted up pan face taking a nice snack break on top. 

From there we continued skinning up, with the more W side of the micro features being wind scoured and frozen and the E side having some nice chalky wind moved pow. With our line being on the west side this gave us some confidence we were unlikely to find any lingering wind slabs. We did not find any evidence of warming.

Although not an option for the day given our lack of glacier gear and the low snowpack, we commented that the paradise glacier would probably ski great being leeward and getting the wind blown snow. 

We reached 8500ft and with only finding a minimal amount warming, we decided it was still too early to drop the chute and we should continue upwards. Rather than going to Muir which we had all been to many times, we decided to try and go to anvil rock at 9500ft. 

With the altitude our skinning slowed but we eventually reached about 50ft below anvil rock. We were stymied though! There was blue ice preventing our passage and we hadn't brought boot crampons. 

It was now 1:15 and with an extra hour of warming we thought the chute was likely in good condition so we transitioned and started skiing down. From 9500 to 8500 we had soft wind blown snow almost like a groomer and the last 200ft above the entrance showed some warming!

I carefully traversed into the chute and found wonderful sun warmed snow. About 2 inches above a crust! We skied down the chute, our downhill muscles groaning not prepared for 1500 vert this early in the season. 

After traversing and climbing back to glacier vista we quickly skied down to the parking lot dodging the tourists. A very successful day!