Made a early start up to Camp Muir to take advantage of the sunrise over the Tatoosh range. Only to find it was pouring rain down at Paradise around 6:30A.M. Being optimistic Chris and I decided to head out towards Camp Muir in the rain. By the time we had made it to pebble creek we were soaked and it had finally started transitioning to rain/snow.
Heading Towards Muir in the Rain
We kept moving with the promise of powder at higher elevations as the weather was puking on us. At around 9’000 feet we decided to rest for awhile as the visibility was less then fifteen feet. Earlier we had noticed that blue sky was in the horizon so we would wait it out. As the clouds lifted we started moving and at around 9’700 I took a step and the snow started collapsing. I jumped back as it exposed a big stress crack about a foot wide and bottomless. I exposed the crack so it was obvious to anyone in the area and slowed my pace down dramatically. It was sketchy because there was no warning signs of any source so the rest of the way to the summit I felt like I was walking on a mine field.
As we rode down the conditions were shin deep consolidated pow for the first thousand feet. Then it turned into a few inches on top of windslab slowly transitioning into mashed potatoes. We were lucky enough to strap into our boards within seconds of the sun coming out at Camp Muir so the upper slopes were not yet sun affected. After a few thousand feet of riding we made our way back down the summer trail. All things considered it was a pretty lousy day riding Camp Muir in the rain.
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