Fuhrer Finger 6/1-6/2

Left on Saturday morning to attempt the Fuhrer Finger route, a first for the four of us. Camped at around 9200 feet on the west edge of the wilson glacier. Clear skies overnight helped freeze everything overnight, but alas with headlamps on we soon realized we would be playing posthole roulette the rest of the day, a few supported steps before breaking through. This continued all the way up the fuhrer as we set the bootpack. Setting the bootpack became so time consuming that by 12,500 feet we knew we wouldnt make the summit in time, and as we had already seen a few rocks whiz by as well as some significant recent slide activity from the previous few days we made our decent around 10:15. I was definitely a bit bummed having never summited before, but the consolation prize was skiing the finger which proved to be corn almost all the way back to camp. The skiing from camp back to muir was mushy and sticky with low viz from the cloud layer siting at about 9000. We arrived at paradise to witness the entire spectrum of outdoor recreation and to provide spectacle for tourists. 

One other party came up the route in a one day push and turned around near where we did, otherwise we watched the hordes traveling to muir while we were on our own. Several parties we passed on the descent were aiming to do the route on monday.