Home > Trip Reports > June 1-2, MRNP, Emmons-Winthrop arm, V5 success

June 1-2, MRNP, Emmons-Winthrop arm, V5 success

6/1/14
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
5716
6
Posted by kwangs on 6/5/14 2:01am
Long time lurker, first time poster...

Andy and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to climb the Emmons and ski the Winthrop arm. We started hiking from White River Sunday morning. We were given poor beta that continuous snow started at 4500 so we did not bring our shoes and ended up hiking up to 5600 in our boots where snow actually starts and skinning is possible.  We were definitely traveling against the flow of traffic streaming down the Inter glacier but reached a practically deserted Camp Schurman by early afternoon.

We were up and out of the tent by 6:30 and followed a pretty solid bootpack up the Emmons.  The route is straightforward and easy to navigate with only a few smaller crevasses to step over. We were roped up the whole way but we met a few parties the day before who said they opted not to. We did feel comfortable enough ascending the route without crampons. 

It was sunny and hot with minimal breeze making for a true slog uphill. We reached the summit by noon and found great skiing conditions up high. Conditions deteriorated a bit at about 12,000 as we transitioned to the Winthrop Arm with a variable and fragile crust on top of sugar. We weren't breaking through every time but the unpredictable nature of the snow made every turn a bit of a gamble. The snow got steadily better as we descended further down and the steeper escape off of the arm in between crevasses skied great (phew). We were back in time to enjoy a couple of beers before descending the tracked out Inter glacier back to our car.

We loitered for a while at Schurman and weren't skiing the Inter glacier until 4 or so. We cut some pretty big wet slides with much of the(fairly low angle) bowl sliding beneath our skis. We skied far left to avoid sending slides down on a party headed up below us but definitely be aware if you're skiing or ascending in that area later in the day. We also stayed on the right side of the river so we only had to cross one snow bridge pretty far down. Not sure how much longer that bridge will last though...

We were also excited about this trip since this ski marked the final volcano in our most recent V5 objective: to ski all 5 major WA volcanoes in a season. St Helens (May 12), Glacier Peak (May 15-16), Baker (May 21), Adams (May 23). Psyched to get such a great weekend to finish it up and ski nearly 9,000 vertical.   


All 5!? Nice work!

author=kwangs link=topic=31859.msg133941#msg133941 date=1401987679]
We were also excited about this trip since this ski marked the final volcano in our most recent V5 objective: to ski all 5 major WA volcanoes in a season. St Helens (May 12), Glacier Peak (May 15-16), Baker (May 21), Adams (May 23). 

Congrats!  Way to get on it during those 10 days or so in May.

That's quite a first report!  Nice work.

read your exploit with envy wondering, of course, if that was a P-51.. ;D

Great work. Nice to go when dirt walking is minimized.

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june-1-2-mrnp-emmons-winthrop-arm-v5-success
kwangs
2014-06-05 09:01:19