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June 25, Kautz

6/25/17
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Posted by kamtron on 6/26/17 3:21am
Skied the Kautz yesterday as a group of four. Excellent conditions overall. We were grateful for the report by Greg from Thursday.

Approached from Paradise via the lower Nisqually and Wilson glaciers. Coverage is excellent, although some cracks are forcing the skintrack through one section which is exposed to icefall. A collapsing serac sent some of our group running, but the chunks thankfully didn't make it to the skinner. Easy travel along the ridge brought us to a beautiful camp at 9300' with running water. We all took naps in the tents, but I went for a little afternoon tour up the Turtle to acclimatize and enjoyed excellent corn back to camp at 6 pm.

Starting at 4 am, we skinned up the Turtle until booting became necessary (those with ski crampons were able to skin to top). Fixed line crossing at 11,200' was easy with crampons on but harder to reverse in the afternoon, so we set up a belay on the way back. The climb overall was straightforward with excellent snow for cramponing and no postholing. A dedicated type could probably have even skinned from above the ice chute to the summit, but we roped up here and cramponed our way up. The most-traveled route currently crosses onto the Nisqually at approximately 13000' and climbs directly to the summit. We reached this at 11 am, took a break for lunch, and skied at noon.

We experienced ice globules and generally terrible snow on the summit dome but excellent corn from 14k on the upper Kautz to the Turtle, where it became a bit heavy for my 88-waisted skis. We skied out Van Trump, meeting a couple friends along the way. I thought the snow was better below camp than on the Turtle, probably it's a little more consolidated. Smooth snow basically from the summit down. The time is now!

Kam and the Kautz typically a real good match it seems.

Two photos from the Paradise parking lot just before 9 am on the 25th. Looks like a group of two on the upper Kautz, a group of three on the upper Nisqually, and a group climbing out of the Finger on the booter.

Nice work. Tahoma never ceases to amaze.

Nice photos, Charlie. The group of 2 on upper Kautz was a group we leap-frogged on the way up. The group of 3 on the Nisqually was just ahead of us. We are probably taking a break on the cleaver when you got this. And the people on the Finger---not sure if they made it past the crevasse crux or not.

Something I didn't mention before, skiing this route can be tricky with the climber traffic it sees. We had to negotiate a passage around a team of 8 downclimbing the upper ice chute with some kind of fixed rope, really slowly. The other team of 2 got hung up there, too.

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2017-06-26 10:21:39