Overnight Muir Tour
We’ve had President’s Day weekend circled on our calendar for a couple months now as a time in which we’d go take some epic overnight tour. However, the low snowpack and friend-availability had us change our plans from a multi-day hut tour in BC to a more mellow, snow-guaranteed weekend: Mount Rainier.
It was a beautiful high pressure weekend, so Christian, Kyle, Katy, and myself opted to tour up the Muir Snowfield and stay overnight at Camp Muir. We figured we’d get in a mellow tour, set up Kyle’s new tent at Camp Muir, and enjoy some homemade Chili and a growler of yummy beer.
Mount Rainier — Beautiful weekend for a tour!
After picking up permits and sorting some gear, we started skinning up from the Paradise parking lot around 10:30a. We took our time and enjoyed a nice break at the top of Panarama Point, where we watched endless skiers and snowshoers also head up. It was pretty obvious we weren’t the only people looking for good quality turns and, unfortunately, not finding much outside of high elevation snowfields.
We could have been in better shape on the way up, (which I’m blaming on the lack of winter this year). so it took us a while to make it to Camp Muir: we finally crested the final hill around 2pm.
Touring up past Glacier Vista on our way up
Christian touring up the Muir Snowfield
The wind started to pick up as we began digging our tent platform, and we ended up needing extra time to build up wind-protection around the sides of the tent. Winter camping is a reminder of not just colder temps, but also of how early it begins to get dark. By the time we had finished setting the tent up the sun was setting, and we had yet to put on warmer layers or boil up water and heat up our food. The tent-digging kept us active and warm, but without the sun we got cold pretty fast.
Sun setting as we continued to set up our shelter.
After finally tending to ourselves, layering up, and enjoying some warm (and delicious!) chili and beer that we hauled up, we settled in to relax a bit and get ready to sleep through the windy night.
Except windy is an understatement. Kyle’s tent was the BD Mega Light, and despite snow-walls we built around the tent, the gusts up to 40mph made for a loud and often chilly night. The tent doesn’t have a floor, so we slept on top of a thin tarp and kept our gear and snow-bricks on the sides to keep snow and wind from drifting in. I slept pretty cold in my Mountain Equipment Helium 400 on a Z-Lite pad. Lesson learned: an air pad would probably have been more comfortable.
The next morning, I awoke early to a warming sun, but still blustery winds. After a leisurely morning, we snapped a few photos, packed up, and started heading down.
View of our camp in the morning.
The ride down was mostly uneventful — A little wind-scoured up top but otherwise decent conditions all the way down the Muir Snowfield back to the Paradise Parking lot.
Adventures Earned: camping at 10,000′ in WA. In the winter. On Snow. In a circus tent (Kyle’s words :))
Lessons Learned: don’t get that tent for windy conditions. Airpads for snow. Skin faster to race daylight.
Our group before skiing down.
Windy conditions! The three dots on the snowfield were a group that was practicing rescue techniques.
Christian skiing down the Muir Snowfield.
Katy on the descent.