May 29, 2007, â Fuhrer Finger; Yes â Summit; No.
5/29/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3137
3
After our previous failure to climb the Finger (May 12&13, 2007), myself, Armin and Claudius decided to try a one-day push. With a perfect weather forecast this time we were moderately confident of success. Leaving Paradise at 4:10 am in a warm, gusty breeze we made good use of our experience from 2 weeks ago and regained our previous campsite at 10,000 in about four hours. Here we retrieved a pair of ski crampons left behind last time - $45 to the good already! Changing to boots and crampons we booted up the Finger in a mish-mash of suncups, penitentes and soft snow. A couple of rocks came bounding eagerly down, but we were able to dodge them. Above the Finger we angled right on to the Nisqually, passing through a somewhat broken area. The weather was beyond perfect, with almost no wind and stellar visibility. Changing back to skis we skinned up the lower angled Nisqually, weaving through more crevasses than were apparent at the same time last year. Cresting a small rise at 12,500 we were dismayed to find a huge crevasse stretching from icefall to icefall, right across the route. Only two tentative snow bridges were available, one only a foot thick and ready to collapse at any moment. The other was a convoluted, twisted and narrow mass of snow which did not look convincingly attached to anything either! Invoking the mantra about living to ski another day, we lazed on crevasse beach for a while in the hot sun, then clicked in for the 7,000 run back to the car. The descent was the typical mixture of great corn, mashed up dirty snow and heavy slush, but several thousand feet of great skiing were had. Finally, the Finger is off our list for this season, but some way or another well stand on our skis on Columbia Crest!
Good job! Looks like pretty interesting snow conditions. Good decision on leaving those bridges alone.
Wow, that crevasse needs a ladder! Nice work and good call on playing it safe.
Thanks so much for posting the report. Am/was/still maybe thinking about it for this weekend...
- Matt
- Matt
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