Home > Trip Reports > Mt. Ruth MRNP 1/10

Mt. Ruth MRNP 1/10

1/15/11
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3889
10
Posted by Kyle Miller on 1/13/11 7:24am
With all this raising and lowering of the freezing level Boot, Jason Hummel and myself decided to head back into Glacier Basin to tackle one of the Couloirs on Mt. Ruths North face.



Conditions were variable with anywhere from a inch of new snow to a foot on the Glacier Basin trail which made following our old skin track easy. Once in the Basin we were skinning through well over a foot of fresh snow.



We decided to follow the low Eastern ridge of Mt. Ruth to avoid potential avalanche danger.



We felt fortunate to be in the sunshine for the entirety of our skin but just before we summited clouds started to move in.



Once on the summit we got a great view of The Interglacier, Emmons and the summit of Rainier.



The top few hundred feet was wind effected with small deposits of fresh snow on top of boiler plate ice.



but once we got into the gully we found deep deposits of dry snow.



Boot decided to head for the better snow while Jason and myself went for the sporty couloir.



Conditions were anything from dust on crust to 3 feet of fresh snow. Too bad for this rain event but it's still early in the season.

We started at 9:00 and were in Glacier Basin by 10:30. I think we summited at around 1:00 and back to the campground just before 3:00.

Each time we are getting faster.

The Emmons is really starting to fill in  ;)

Roads in great shape and hopefully will still be covered in snow after this rain event.

No plowing going on as of right now.

How's the road for Snowmo's.  No half side ploughing?

It's horrible, bumpy, icy, dangerous, and with downed trees.  Too risky  ;)

we watched a couple of tele skiers doing those in may 09 .. cool to get out there this time of year  .. of course awesome photos as always jason .. the one on mt ruths summit is really cool too

Thanks for the invite guys. It was great to finally get back there. Plus I was excited to now have skied Ruth Mountain, Mount Ruth and Ruth Peak.

Great stuff guys.  Jason, may I grace the home page with some of these in the future?

For sure Marcus. You can take the borders off if you'd like? The only reason I have them is to add the titles and since the background of my website is black, you can't see them.

author=Jason_H. link=topic=19020.msg80688#msg80688 date=1295030933]
Thanks for the invite guys. It was great to finally get back there. Plus I was excited to now have skied Ruth Mountain, Mount Ruth and Ruth Peak.


How about the Ruthless Ridge?  Some years back, skied up to Camp Schurman in May for an attempt on Rainier.  Being off-season, we could spend the night in the hut where we found the ranger logbook and were marvelously entertained by the stylings of Jim Springer, longtime MRNP now Teton climbing ranger.  He had his own names for some features in the area including the Ruthless Ridge for the ridgeline opposite of Mt Ruth running up to Steamboat Prow. 

List to do:
1) Get snow-Mo back at cabin
2) Refer to item #1

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mt-ruth-mrnp-1-10
Kyle Miller
2011-01-13 15:24:56