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[TR] Rainier - 10,500 to the Nisqually Bridge 4/10/2016


lukeh

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Trip: Rainier - 10,500 to the Nisqually Bridge

 

Date: 4/10/2016

 

Trip Report:

NisqBridge-1.jpg

Cell-phone selfie cruising down the Nisqually Chutes

 

Quick conditions report for Muir (and a little above), Nisqually Chutes, and the Nisqually Bridge.

 

  • Christian and I wanted a quick, but fun conditioner in a short amount of time so we headed to Muir this morning (Sunday) to do a quick speed ascent.
  • Started skinning up at 9:08 AM, me in shorts + t-shirt, perfectly comfortable. Snow was a little hard, not too bad.
  • Partway up pan face I took a hard left to head toward the Pebble Creek summer route. I think it cost me time and was more uneven elevation gain/loss-wise. For the ascent, I think it's probably most efficient to stay to the ridge on the right and swing around left a bit later, losing almost nothing in elevation at any point.
  • Just over 2.5 hours later I was at Muir. Snow was already getting pretty soft all the way up, so I imagined down low it was going to be heavy/grabby.
  • Saw a group of 3 boarders who had just come down the ID from the summit, then took Cadavar gap. They said it was still in with a new path around the big crevasse we jumped last weekend, and a few more openings. They gave the ID 2 more weeks.
  • Ran into another friend who had done the Gib Ledges the night before, no real surprises on that route either.
  • Christian had been scoping a line above Muir. A steep chute to climber's left of the guide hut that started at about 10,500ft. He immediately started heading up that way toward Gib Ledges. I followed and we took off down the chute, which felt about 40 degrees-ish. This was a trip highlight, very fun, steep, with great snow.
  • Snow continued to be kind of awesome, great corn that allowed for speed. Viz/depth perception was perfect - blue bird day. We kept up speed all the way to the Niqually Chutes entrance where we ran into our other buddy.
  • The chutes were similar great corn, but starting to get a little tracked and a few, fairly large wet slide debris piles. Ryan was there yesterday and said these were new (from yesterday).
  • Ryan and his buddies were headed to the bridge, so Christian and I decided to head down as well as we'd never done it + it won't be in much longer. The promise of a shuttle to Paradise from he or his GF sealed the deal.
  • Snow started to get heavy/grabby halfway to the bridge from the base of the chutes, otherwise snow had been awesome all the way until this point.
  • Only had to stop/hop a couple times down low, including a pivot move over a boulder near the bridge. Christian only took his skis off 1x for that boulder, so he walked about 5ft, skied the rest.
  • Overall a pretty fun, quick day back on Rainier.

 

[video:youtube]4teZXxTK7RU

Splitboard descent video illustrating conditions from ~10,500ft to the base of the chutes.

 

NisqBridge-2.jpg

About to drop into the steep chute skier's right of Muir, toward the Gib Ledges entrance, around 10,500ft.

 

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Looking up toward Gib Ledegs from the drop-in point.

 

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Entrance to the Nisqually Chutes. First time for me dropping in.

 

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Large wet slide avy debris in the chutes. Recent slide (yesterday).

 

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Wet slide #2 in the chutes.

 

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Picking up speed at the base of the chutes, heading toward the Nisqually Bridge (~4200ft)

 

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I refused to take off my board, so I pivoted on these boulders and used both my poles to hop on a few incline spots. I paddled like I was in a canoe to keep speed with both poles.

 

NisqBridge-9.jpg

The famous bridge, where everyone pulls over and gets a picture next to the waterfall. I'm surprised more people aren't killed by distracted motorists in that spot. Or are they? Haven't looked into it.

 

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Christian learning the hard way that showing no bare leg gets you nothing.

 

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Amber saving us by shuttling us back to my car at Paradise. Pink line is a guess at our line.

 

Map1.jpg

Our tracks up/down from 5500ft (Paradise), to 10,500ft, to 4200ft.

 

Map2.jpg

 

Map3.jpg

 

Map4.jpg

Ignore the pink line above, this looks better.

 

Luke

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