May 23-24, 2009, Mt.Rainier, Fuhrer Finger

Nice work it looks like we missed you by a half hour

On another note when summiting Rainer yesterday someone fell into a steam cave and got badly injured requiring a heli evac from the summit crater.

Be carefull out there

Congrats on the route and great conditions!  Appreciate the update....

We had those same rock bullets at ~7 in the morning last Thursday also. Kind of exciting/scary. We didn't make it up though (it was a 1-day attempt, so I'm not to bummed). Going to try again this Thursday. Did you guys stay on the cleaver about, to the climbers left of the ice-fall (kind of along the Wapowaty cleaver) or did you jog right underneath them to then ascend to summit? Was the Wilson still showing any more than a just few signs of crevasses?

I'm thinking of journeying up that way and possibly have a 'go' too/or at least a good recon...  Could use all the beta any one can put up....thanks........

Amar, Kyle and I went up Ingram Direct Sunday morning, leaving Paradise at 2:30am or so.  We watched the sunrise at Camp Muir and continued up the climbers route, reaching the summit at noon on Sunday. 

Kyle posted a picture of the copter rescue that occurred shortly after we arrived at the summit.  We hung out for an hour or so and made a descent down Nisqually glacier then across to Fuhrer Thumb then back across the glacier, skinning out above the Paradise parking lot.

For Amar and Kyle this capped more than a week of skiing volcano's up and down the west coast.  For me i was happy to get the exercise of a one day Rainier summit.

I'm sure Amar or Kyle will be posting pics and a more complete trip report shortly, probably under a new trip report.

Conditions were perfect, winds were light, the sun was bright, the snow corny.  On the Ingram, there were 3 or 4 steps across snow bridges, one of which i'm still thinking about.  Camp Muir was full of tents, they were asking people to go to the Flats to pitch more tents.  On the way down at least one or two parties had left tracks before us, although we were the only ones to hit the Thumb.  The snow was firm up top, like waterskiing at the bottom.  Some small wet sluffs, one wet slab on a SW facing roll that would have been bad had it propagated. Kyle had an adventure on a sluff that broke loose as he was skinning the moraine back up to the base of Pan Point.

Some of the slides towards the bottom of the run were of very wet snow that had the qualities of a slab but had a very high water content which were unusual to witness.

We had ropes, harnesses, and axes, but didn't use them.  We cramponed from the base of Pan Point to the summit.  Amar melted water as we went.

Overall a fantastic time and a great run. I'm excited to see the pics and see the rest of Amar and Kyle's volcano trip.

author=Pete A link=topic=13429.msg55884#msg55884 date=1243216999]
   Swinging out onto the Nisqually at around 12k provided a direct and straightforward route on the glacier with very few crevasse crossings.   

Pointed skis downhill at 11:30am

It was a great weekend in many places! 
A few questions:
Is the WilsonGlacier/Van Trump Divide the place marked in the Smoot volcano guide as having sheltered campsites looker's left of the Finger and Thumb?
What time did you leave camp?
Did you summit?  Sorry, couldn't tell from the TR.
Cheers

Yes, there are several nice little campsites with rock walls already built up lookers left of the Finger and the Thumb on the divide at around 9200' (I don't have Smoot in front of me so can't say for sure that's what it's referring to).  We left camp a little after 4am and had great cramponing conditions in the Finger.  Sadly, my recurring problems with altitude prevented us from summiting on Sunday (thanks to Pete and Andy for being willing to turn around with me), but the Nisqually Glacier up to 13,250' was in great shape!  There weren't really any crevasse shenanigans to deal with.  That's a hell of a fun ski down!

We were wondering who made those lovely tracks.  It looked GREAT!  I'm pretty sure this photo was taken in the vicinity of where y'all camped,  on the divide between the Wilson and VanTrump like Telemack suggested:



Becky, you're not alone in your troubles with altitude ;) Monika and I turned around at 13000' on Saturday over on the Tahoma due to a combination of conditions (too late in the day) and my feeling like dogshit, and then again at 12000' on Sunday due to my nausea, shakes, light headedness and overall inability to suffer. Nice views though.

Anyway, I'm happy that you and Pete (and Andy who I don't think I know) had such a nice ski.

Thanks for the info. 
This ski/mountain stufff can be taxing when living at sea level....

Way to go Becky, Pete and Andy !! 
Glad you got such purrfect finger conditions !

Thanks Monica! (and Ryan, I think we met on your Dragontail exit?)

So I'd say that I'm probably more on the scared than excited camp about those rock bullets.  Pete did warn me but there's something to be said about having 'em whiz by your head making that high pitched whirling noise.  They seem to be coming out of nowhere, picking up speed along the hard snow and bouncing like a football.  Later on the ski down, when the snow was soft, the rocks seem to dig in more but getting tagged could make for a rough day. Not sure how to avoid them as they seem to randomly kick off on either side of the finger ... maybe the carryover approach?   

That said, what a fun ski!?! Surprisingly, we thought we'd encounter ankle schmoo after packing up camp but even on the lower Nisqually by 1:30p, the corn was oh so good.