may 29-30 Boiling Water Route ID/DC Rainier

Monika graciously took us newbies up Rainier- jay and jen, who have never been up Rainier, and tim and I, who have never skied the DC route. We started off 11 am on friday morning with a lenticular cloud sitting on top of Rainier. The ranger told us most people were on the Furher Finger route. It was very hot and no wind on the Muir snowfield. Our destination was Ingraham Flats, trying to go as high as we could, hoping to make the next day as short as possible. Monika went ahead to boil us some water at Camp Muir. When we found her at the public hut, we were pleased to find very few people at the shelter. So we decided amongst ourselves that we should stay at the hut, getting out of the wind that is often present at Muir. It was a great decision! We were warm and comfy and glad that it was a quiet night at Muir. The next day we headed off at 5 am for the Ingraham Direct, which the ranger indicated was in great shape and they hadn't put a route on the Cleaver yet. To our luck the lenticular cloud had dissipated, and we had a wonderful day in front us. Once we saw the Ingraham, we decided that the route was firm and so didn't not rope up the entire way. The route is obvious with guide flags abound--stayed left until making a traverse under the higher layer of seracs . Again, Monika would go ahead and route find while boiling water for us the whole way. I don't think I drank that much water on an previous trips. We had to cross a couple of crevasses but the snow bridges were obvious. I immensely enjoyed crossing the crevasse with the ladder. After summiting the crater at 11 am, we took some "first" pics and headed down the mountain. We did not stray far from the flag route. Once we got to the ID/DC cut off,  we decided to ski Disappointment Cleaver since it would be a better ski line, avoiding seracs and crevasses all together. Monika was always ahead checking out the ski line and if it would go. We had a bit of wet slough, but no problems with avalanche concerns. Sure enough, Monika picked out the right ski line and we made it down the DC avoiding any rocks or icefalls. Back to camp Muir, there was so many people there, we were glad we went Friday. After packing up, and heading down Muir with a Comedy of Errors. Since we were so tired at that point, we had some spectacular falls and ski binding malfunctions. We made it down safely in one piece. Thanks Monika, for a  great trip. We sure did laugh a lot!!