Photos are coming
After waffling a bunch about whether I ought to go to work or ski, a short but protracted war with an alarm clock, and an uneventful drive, I found myself in the parking lot at Paradise a little before 9 am. The park had gotten a little fresh snow (1/2-3" depending on elevation and drifting) and looked wonderful. I was skinning by 9:23 through the low cloud layer.
I cruised up Panorama Point, nearly climbing 2k/hr, whereupon I took the requisite panorama (insert panorama here) of the cloudsea. This brought to a close my quest to find myself atop a cloudsea, though I'm looking forward to doing it again! Disgorging the contents of my pack showed no sign of lip balm, so I resigned myself to tasting sunscreen all day. Boo.
More skinning ensued, with a pair of adventures through talus strewn snow (my ski bases are still ok! (just don't ask my edges... )). Eschewing any dream of a speedy ascent, I took another long break to admire the view at perhaps 8900' and took another panorama.
That done, I decided to make a push for the camp. The push became more fervent when I realized I still had a pretty good shot at making it up in less than four hours (various people I'd chatted with on the way up had claimed their personal best at 3:50). So, I skinned faster, but not super fast, as I can only go so fast... I arrived at the top sometime after 13:13, and made a mental note that it had been 3:55. Discussions at the summit suggested that the RMI guides can do it in 2:00 and that the mountain's been climbed and descended in less than 6 hours.
Camp Muir is pretty nifty, and I lounged around for a while. The view was great, and the collection of characters that came and went was fun to observe. I was especially keen on watching a couple who'd hiked up with a sled make their way down the hill. It worked (only one of them rode it), but the sledding wasn't as fun to watch as I'd hoped. Anyone who wishes to sled the Muir snowfield should consider making provisions for... turning. I chatted with a guy named Jason from the Tacoma branch of the Mounties (jlk on TAY?), and then it was time to ski.
The first turns went great. So did a bunch more. I skied over to the Eastern edge of the snowfield (atop Anvil Rock) and snapped a panorama (check out the crevasse/yawning cornice failure uphill from where I stopped!). I traversed back to the middle, and began my first real harvesting of wide open fresh turns. The East just doesn't have anything like fast mellow turns several thousand feet above the clouds. Lower down, the continuously skiable line required some semi-adventurous negotiation of some large wind-sculpted features.
As I skied, I stopped frequently to soak in the view (let my legs rest). Several panoramas were the result - look for the rope team on the Nisqually glacier.
After a screwy descent of Panorama Point (I should've nutted up and skied the main line, it would've been easier than my sneak past the headwall.), I skied into the clouds. My fantasies of skiing above a cloudsea have never really included hitting the clouds, but it was an extra bonus. As long as I'm reasonably familiar with my surroundings, it's clear to me that I love skiing in clouds. Routefinding gets more fun, and I love watching objects and people appear and disappear in the mist as I cruise by.
Finishing up the route, I got the full Paradise experience. Tourists had various reactions to my presence, the best of which was by a trio of asian tourists. They took a few photos of me as I skied to the berm above the parking lot, which I didn't find terribly out of character. What did surprise me is that after I booted over to the car and started messing with gear, I looked up to find that a video camera, a point and shoot camera , and an SLR were all pointed at me. My response was to surrepticiously pull out Dave's camera and take their picture. Unfortunately, I was too slow to record the experience. I left Paradise at 4ish.
I'm totally glad I skied. I'm going to get more work done now that I'm happy.
Vertical feet climbed and skiied: ~4700. Number of biffs/wipeouts: 0. Number of happy Charlies: 1.
Lessons:
Lip balm, dude!
Lowering the center of gravity of my pack would probably have improved my skiing
Some sort of sunhat/arab-anti-sun-head-device is in my future.
I'd always heard you could sunburn your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Now I know it's possible.