Mt Rainier, Inter Glacier June 15 and Muir June 16, 2013

Looking back from Glacier Basin

Glopfest and halos!
Not much in the way of gnar on this trip, but alas not every weekend can be a redbull commercial, it is ok to just have a good time occasionally.  Reports the week before of good corn on the Inter Glacier on the North side of Rainier motivated a good size group for June.  Ilia, Meredith, Michah and I met up with Bryan at the White River parking lot bright and early.  We took the 3 mile hike in to glacier basin fairly quickly......after everyone talked Ilia and I out of crossing a creek for no reason.

Don't go chasin' waterfalls. Or streams.

We disturbed a Marmot as we changed in to touring.

I'm glad he doesn't have a taste for trail runners

The tour up to Steamboat Prow at 9,600 was pretty straight forward, a bit of a slog in some spots as the snow got soft.  We missed the perfect corn window by about an hour.

Bryan makes the final push. Sunrise in the background, looks like it will be a short season this year.

I had a nice break at the top on a rock and took in the view of the Emmons and Winthrop Glaciers.  The emmons route looks great right now, no troubling serac crossing yet.

Emmons on the left, Winthrop on the Right. Climbing route up the corridor is quite visible.

As we got ready to ride down we noticed a halo around the sun, pretty amazing day to be out.

Bryan coming down from the prow

Looking up from glacier basin, St. Elmos pass to the right

On the trail back to the car

We got back to the car in good time, but not good enough to meet our social obligations back in town.  I think EVERYONE missed a party of some sort they we supposed to attend in Seattle.  Sorry guys but the teryaki in Enumclaw was totally worth it.

• June 16th

The next day I got up early again to meet up with some other friends doing a hike up to Camp Muir.  Again I was with the rope team from Emmons last year, Dre and Deb.  We were joined by Joshua and two of Dre's friends.  I decided to take this one as a conditioning hike and hauled a 6 pack of rainier in my pack in addition to some other goodies.  To my dismay upon reaching camp at 10k NO ONE WANTED TO DRINK MY BEER!  Thankfully Dre came through and took one off my hands.  I ended up forcing the remaining 4 upon anyone who had come up on skis, some more thankful then others.

"No one will believe this without a photo" -Dre

The ride down was gloppy and uneventful, I actually stayed on the Muir snowfield and took a direct line to the car.  What can I say I REALLY wanted my chocolate milk.

I have great fashion sense.