July 17, 2004, Mt Rainier, Fryingpan Glacier

Two favorable July TAY TRs had implanted inclination to ski this glacier. A bit after 5am I picked up Tri-Ungulate (Launce), who was visiting from Utah, and we headed towards Rainier to meet Skinnyskier (Josh), Chris, John and Silas. At the Fryinpan Cr TH we were unable to find Silas. After waiting we relucantly started without him hoping he'd either catch us or was already ahead. I later learned Silas was waiting at the park entrance so we could carpool to avoid crowding the small parkinglot. Sorry we missed you Silas!

We hiked the Wonderland past Summerland to the prominent bowl south of Meany Crest. We had hoped to ascend this bowl to gain the gl but the bowl's upper portion appeared quite steep. After a bit of discussion, indecision and observing two packs of wildlife (Wolfs? Goats? Sasquatches?) cross the bowl, we ascended a few hundred vft of scree on the bowl's climber's right, traversed north, then booted-up several steepish slopes to the top of Meany Crest and the edge of the gl. From here we skinned to ~9000ft on Whitman Crest, south of the crest's highest point. We descended around 3:30 on nicely corned snow with minimial suncups. We skied towards the slopes west of Summerland were we found phonemonal skiing on steep slopes. We followed the snow as far as we could doing a few ackward portages until we were about level with Summerland.

Based on the descent, though I don't think we lost that much time, it is probably more efficient to gain the Fryingpan by climbing the snow ramps southwest of Summerland rather then ascending the bowl south of Meany Crest. The snow below the Fryingpan is getting sparse so I'm not sure how much longer this tour will last.


Thanks for the great trip Launce, Josh, Chris, John, and Silas (even though we didn't meet up >:()!

Whitman Crest with Little Tahoma (or as my friend Loren calls it, "Little Chosshoma") on the far right:



More photos can be seen in