Home > Trip Reports > July 2, 2016, MRNP, Russell Glacier

July 2, 2016, MRNP, Russell Glacier

7/2/16
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
6603
7
Posted by iluka on 7/2/16 1:06pm
With the road to Mowich Lake Road open as of yesterday, Reid and I headed out to ski the Russell Glacier today and were not disappointed. The trail is snow free well into Spray Park. We broke off the trail around 6,000 ft and headed off to the Flett Glacier where we found enough snow to start skinning around 6,200 feet. Easy travel from there up to between Echo and Observation Rocks. It's easy to cross onto the Russell Glacier without having to carry over any rocks. Once on the glacier, it was smooth travel all the way to the plateau at about 9,500 ft where we opted to turn around (a few groups went up to the top of the headwall, which from the look of their turns, seemed to ski pretty well). The ski down from our turnaround point was great. Smooth surface without suncups, fast snow. No cracks opening up yet. It got a little grabby around 7800 feet where we turned around and headed up for a second lap. On the way out, we cut over to the Flett which, albeit a little less smooth than the Russell Glacier, also skied quite well. The headwall looks to be in good shape from what we could see and some groups put some turns on it yesterday.

Not a bad way to get the holiday weekend going!
Thanks for the report. Hoping to head that way soon!

Nice to meet you up there (again).  I will just add that the Flett headwall had a smooth snow and skied very nice indeed, with no sluffing.  There is a convenient bootpack on the right side of the wall (sharp tool recommended for the top part). 




Awesome smooth corn everywhere  ;D
Photo By: Rory Robison

Awesome.
I noticed your tracks on Saturday.

Some video from last weekend  :D

https://vimeo.com/173993999

Really liked some of the video, so swoopie, praticularalary the skier on the slope with the tracke, sooo good. That steep pitch looks great, thanks for the report, pictures, and video!

FreeBird, trenching:




Forgot your handle, Z:




Montana friends:




Glaciers lookin fine for July:


Reply to this TR

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july-2-2016-mrnp-russell-glacier
iluka
2016-07-02 20:06:19