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Topic: 6/14/08, Mt. Rainier, Fuhrer Thumb (Read 5513 times)
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danhelmstadter
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It was about 9o'clock, and I was drinking and singing karaoke in Ashford when I sough Ryan, Monika, and Mike. I had plans to go skiing in the North Cascades, but meeting friends with ski plans close by, I could not resist going with them.
We set out about 4am from Paradise, and made good time up to the base of the Fuhrer Finger.
Rock fall was abundant, and as always really scary, there were the few slow bouncers, making there presence known by skimming sounds on the snow. There were the tumblers, tumbling down silently, and worst of all were the cruise missiles, flying by at a frightening speed, and making a sound as I would imagine a UFO would make.
At the top of the Finger around 11k, we met some Montanans, who had camped at the base of the Finger, and had turned around at 12k due to trail breaking difficulties and avalanche concerns. They skied down the Finger before the snow surface had the chance to soften.
I continued on up the snow covered Wopawety Cleaver to avoid crevasse issues, and Ryan, Mike, and Monika skied down from there. The cleaver had some 55dg sections, with funky variable snow. Past the cleaver, I continued up on the climbers right side of the upper Kautz, postholeing, and skinning meter+ deep powder, The upper glacier got really icy higher up, and I meandered a little over to climbers left in search of soft, deep snow, nothing, nothing but ice, and sections of windslab. The last 40' were excruciatingly slow. I topped out on Point Success, and decided against skiing the icy glacier I had ascended.
I skied down the upper Nisqually, then cut through seracs to a point about halfway down the upper Kautz, where I found nice powder (slightly crusted). Then skied down the Wapowety cleaver(all snow), steep and tricky in sections, to the Thumb. The Thumb was very soft, perhaps too soft...(pole deep isothermal mank) Someone videotaped me from the lower Wilson. I was experimenting with sticky pads on the front of my boot liners, but found that these mostly put me in the back seat, tore them off somewhere lower down. Still some excellent turns though, weaved through the crevasses, then down the rolls of the Wilson...
I was making nice sweeping turns down the Wilson, aware of a rollover ahead, which I planned on cutting... When it released without me cutting it, I was about 10' from the roll when it released, definitely remote triggered it, Massive wet slab, easily big enough to bury someone.. WS-AG-R4-D3-I... I skied down the bedsurface, amazed at the depth and extent of the debris, the crown was perhaps 6' deep at its deepest. Then skied down to the next roll, which had already slid... finding out from some campers at the bottom that my friends had triggered and been caught. Shaken, I returned to Paradise, setting off whumps along the way.
Definitely a little lucky on this one, slabs ain't no joke. Seems like a big wet cycle went on Saturday, I observed evidence of 30 or so natural slabs, all over the hill, a few days later.
Didn't bring my camera on this one.
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Jason_H.
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We remote triggered some avi's around Mount Adams. They were the loudest wumphs I've ever heard, traveling far up the mountain. Very disconcerting to see the mountain slide 100's of feet away, when you are on flat terrain.
Did you mean 6 inch slabs or 6 foot. If the latter, dang. Glad everyone is fine.
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danhelmstadter
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6 feet at it's deep point, mostly averaging between 1 and 2 feet, a little deeper than the one Ryan triggered, bad at estimations, but it was pherhaps 300' across.
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skykilo
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I can't help but say it: 4 am sounds really late to me for expected conditions on Rainier last weekend. Timing is everything with a spring snowpack, especially south-facing.
I think I've always left (or intended to leave) around midnight for those south side routes.
Sorry if I'm coming across as preachy. Oh well call me a jerk.
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Jason_H.
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I can't help but say it: 4 am sounds really late to me for expected conditions on Rainier last weekend. Timing is everything with a spring snowpack, especially south-facing.
I think I've always left (or intended to leave) around midnight for those south side routes.
Sorry if I'm coming across as preachy. Oh well call me a jerk.
Jerk 
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danhelmstadter
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it definetly was a little late, jerk.
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ryanl
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Lesson learned, Obi-one  And I'm the Jerk- I almost killed a guy.....
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BillK
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When I solo, I often wonder what would happen to my dog (back at the car) if I didn't return...a "little lucky" indeed. The first clue (after the late hour) was the rockfall...must've been the karaoke!
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« Last Edit: 06/18/08, 12:09 AM by BillK »
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CascadeClimber
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Here's a WMV version of the video. I didn't do any editing (just transcoded from AVI to WMV), which means that my wheezing and mumbling are audible. It's shakey because the long end of the zoom on my camera is 432mm equivalent- hard to hold steady.
DanH skiing Fuhrer Thumb
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Not all who wander are lost.
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skierguitarist
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Nice job on that video!!!!!!!
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Zap
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Having shot a lot of video footage, I was impressed with the quality of the image using such a long zoom. Nice job breathing and holding the camera fairly steady.
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danhelmstadter
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thanks a lot for shooting the video! I'm definetly impressed with the quality, although being shot at an angle to fall line, it makes my left turns appear a little sharp... definetly an inspiration to start useing a camcorder
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« Last Edit: 06/19/08, 08:36 PM by danhelmstadter »
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Marcus
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What kind of camera are you shooting with?
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CascadeClimber
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<geekcameratalk>
It's a Canon S3-IS still camera. It does 640x480 30 fps video and uses AA batteries like my headlamp. I buy lithium AAs in bulk. They are light, last a long time, and aren't affected by cold.
The current model is the S5-IS, and there is rumor of a S6 coming soon with HD-quality video.
</geekcameratalk>
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Not all who wander are lost.
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MW88888888
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That video was incredible. It was like being there with Dan.
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Marcus
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<geekcameratalk>
It's a Canon S3-IS still camera. It does 640x480 30 fps video and uses AA batteries like my headlamp. I buy lithium AAs in bulk. They are light, last a long time, and aren't affected by cold.
The current model is the S5-IS, and there is rumor of a S6 coming soon with HD-quality video.
</geekcameratalk>
That's pretty good quality footage for a still camera. I've got a Panasonic S100 movie camera (very compact, but poor still image quality) and it does about that well, but the image stabilization can be tough to deal with zooming in that far. Nice work!
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