Home > Trip Reports > Mt Rainier Summit (Ski from Muir) 1/19-20

Mt Rainier Summit (Ski from Muir) 1/19-20

1/19/13
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
4519
5
Posted by BrianT on 1/21/13 12:18am
I skinned up Rainier to Camp Muir with a group of 3 other friends. Made it to Muir in a slow pace (5:15) can tell I'm a bit out of shape this season.  After reaching Muir, I ate my food, drank my water and went to bed. We decided to get up at 2 and start our climb by 3, however as it goes, we were late on the climb and started at 3:30. Our route was the Gib Ledges, a first time for me and a first winter climb.




The route up the Cowlitz Cleaver was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the guy climbing in shorts in January, yes shorts.  Once off the Cleaver we hit the base of the ledges and it went pretty uneventful with the exception of one spot where there was a nice bulge sticking out, with ice on the other side and a 30ft slide to a drop off of certain death, the move itself wasn't very difficult, but an easy mistake would cost you your life there. After getting past this we kept going a bit and finally hit the chute.  For me this was probably the most exposed climbing I've ever done and scared the living crap out of me. The 50-60 degree chute not roped on pretty hard snow front pointing was kinda nerve racking. Made it up that without any issues to the top of the ledges where we took a break and roped up. We made it to the summit after 6 hours or so of climbing with pretty moderate conditions (This was warmer than several summits I've had in the summer) and yes, the guy in shorts summited in shorts in January.

Columbia Crest


Panorama shot of Crater
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The way down, we went down the ID, and it was pretty gnarly.  We had to set a picked in one spot and downclimbed the ID by gib rock by front pointing for several hundred feet. Once past this it was the typical slog through Cathedral Rocks to Muir.

From there, I packed my bag up, ate a handful of M&Ms (Last snack since summit) and skied down from Muir. The conditions on the snowfield were horrible. Was probably the worst skiing I've had up there, and it almost rivaled the summer suncups with the wind blown formations.

All in all, was a great trip, learned a lot of stuff and found out TLT5 performance boots are wicked comfy to summit in!

Also Met CascadeClimber up there and had some good talks.

-Brian
Nice climb after your birthday.  ;)

That's a bit of a change in the ID from around new year's.  Have some crevasses opened up?  Or just tough to ski through?

author=bramski link=topic=27107.msg114206#msg114206 date=1358793040]
That's a bit of a change in the ID from around new year's.  Have some crevasses opened up?  Or just tough to ski through?


Think you're better reading CascadeClimbers report as he skied from summit. Though from my personal opinion, the ID is NOT in at the moment to ski, the risk vs reward seems highly out-weighed.

http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=27095.0

author=bramski link=topic=27107.msg114206#msg114206 date=1358793040]
That's a bit of a change in the ID from around new year's.  Have some crevasses opened up?  Or just tough to ski through?


There is a continuous ski line through the bottom 1/3, for sure. It's at the southern edge, much of it below the Gib Rock overhang, and so somewhat littered with fallen rock and threatened by falling rock. An uncontrolled fall would end at the bottom of a crevasse. So skiable yes, just not worth the risk to me. The top 2/3 of the ID and the entire upper mountain was quite skiable, even by someone with my meager skills.

The middle of the icefall does not go right now, on foot or ski, or at least we could not find a way through despite looking thoroughly.

Nice job Brian! Way to summit. Thanks a lot for the report.

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mt-rainier-summit-ski-from-muir-1-19-20
BrianT
2013-01-21 08:18:11