Home > Trip Reports > April 25, 2007, Mount Rainier - Fuhrer Finger

April 25, 2007, Mount Rainier - Fuhrer Finger

4/25/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
8734
12
Posted by Jason_H. on 5/31/07 1:50am
Mount Rainier - Fuhrer Finger



Sorry, a little preamble to begin, then the story....

Challenge tastes bitter when the drink of choice is failure. You can go thirsty, never succeeding. But failure forges a man, tempers him of stronger metal. It casts him sharper and more finely balanced than success alone would. It is this reason alone that you should tempt failure by seeking it out like a hunter does his prey, unforgiving and unrelenting. The best quarry is not that which is easily caught thus the most satisfying of life's endeavors is succeeding in that which one has sought for long and hard. He has failed at it over and over, but in spite of that succeeded, the journey more valuable than the conclusion.

My advice then, seek challenge and stand on the bones of your failures. Don't give them life because they will burden and overrun you like a stampeding herd. Feast upon them and they will sustain you all of your living days.

I must venture yonder off
On my vision quest
Take all the knowledge I have gathered
And challenge thy nature€™s wrath
For only there can I forge my metal
There in mountains high
Where man is but a visitor
And visions but dance beautifully
across the alpine sky


Okay, here's the story...

I€™ve spent my life climbing on and around Mount Rainier. I grew up there in the foothills in the town of Morton, and my parents began taking my brothers and me to the park as soon as we could walk. Before long skis became the tool of choice and eventually after tackling Mount Hood, Mount Adams , and Saint Helens, we had Mount Rainier left. My dad drew a diagram of a pair of crampons and had a guy build them out of solid steel while my mom sewed up homemade gloves. At age six my twin brother and I climbed up to Muir where we had been dozens of times, but unlike before, we continued. At 12500ft we gave up. It was my first failure on Rainier, and far from my last.

The whole family on the summit of
http://www.cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/rainier/fuhrerfinger/ff2007/DSC_0433.jpg

The summit was finally reached and I looked down into the crater and out beyond into the swirling clouds over Liberty Cap. Our hopes to summit all three summits of Rainier and ski another route were dashed, and we had run out of time and motivation. The weather was playing games with us and we knew that as soon as we left, the games would end and we€™d see the summit clear as day. Right then we were in a cloud. Looking back, I imagine we could€™ve gone for it; nevertheless, I€™ve learned to trust my gut, so without much conversation we left the summit for the route we had climbed.  Fuhrer Finger turned out to be as much of a fantastic ski as I had thought it would be.

Overall the snow altered throughout from hard wind-scoured snow on top to softer mush as we dropped from the summit cap to the top of the finger. Here, shark fins of snow softened by that day€™s sun didn€™t make for the best skiing, but when is Rainier fully skiable in good snow? Not often, that€™s for sure. I€™m always happy for fifty percent. As for that, most of it was still to come on the lower glaciers.   



We took another break at the bottom of the couloir and watched the horizon dim, its last sunrays only a few hours from fading completely. I gave my camera to Sky to carry and we skied that last 5 thousand feet in two or three foul swoops which were the highlight of the trip for me. Never should the thrill of schussing down a slope fade! It is times like this that I remember the reasons I suffer and struggle up mountains at all.

http://www.cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/rainier/fuhrerfinger/ff2007/DSC_0492.jpg

The last bits of skiing over to Glacier Vista and down to the Visitor Center were on deep slush, made nearly impossible to turn in at all because of the flat nature of it. Shuffling and skating, I made it to the car in no time. 

Minutes later, craning my neck like I had at the beginning of the trip, I could see clouds this time, stretching over the summit. Damn weatherman! But I had shined them and made my dash and beat the weather, so I wasn€™t dissatisfied. We had climbed up and skied down in great style on an equally wonderful route, even if it wasn€™t our original plan. The mountain doesn€™t always give you what you want, but a wise mountain never should and a wise mountain man should never quarrel with it. Rather it should strengthen and test you, polish your skills and focus you on your true reasons for being there. Mount Rainier has always done that for me. It did it for my twin and I when we were six and it will continue to do so. Failure is the true metallurgy of mountain men and should never be chastised and ignored, but gripped onto and studied without break. We are all students of nature and she can be a thoughtful teacher.
Nicely crafted report, Jason.
Sweet climb; congradulations to you all.

Nice job Jason. Do tell how the Goat Rocks went thereafter............rough with the full pack?

author=scotteryx link=topic=7285.msg29009#msg29009 date=1180633810]
Nice job Jason. Do tell how the Goat Rocks went thereafter............rough with the full pack?


I love the goat rocks and will write up something for it soon. Every time I go there, it's a lot of fun. Right now there is a lot of blow down, and its better to go cross country if you are familiar with the area.

Nice job Jason -- looks like that crevasse crossing on the upper Nisqually was pretty sporty!  How was it on the way down?

author=Marcus link=topic=7285.msg29011#msg29011 date=1180637813]
Nice job Jason -- looks like that crevasse crossing on the upper Nisqually was pretty sporty!  How was it on the way down?


I'm probably not the best person to ask. It didn't bother me, as I just pretty much glided over it with only a momentary look. My advice, keep your speed up to clear it  ;D.

Heh -- fair enough.  I've seen some of the pictures of you and Josh's antics :)

Fantastic job guys! The snow bridge in the second picture is the one that stymied us on Tuesday. I'd like to think that four days of warm weather was the reason, but probably we were just too wussy.

Great write up Jason, and as usual, great pictures. Especially 

http://www.cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/rainier/fuhrerfinger/ff2007/DSC_0492.jpg.

Sounds like you had some moments of clarity- thanks for passing them on ;).

I'm glad you liked that photo ryan. I actually had my settings set up wrong and pretty much messed up four days of photos, but 30 or so turned out pretty good (I have a few more I haven't pulled onto the net, but will have up later). I've become a bit obsessed with learning my camera and trial and error are my weapons of choice. A wise man would read the manual before he changes things. Ha. Not me (!) I read the manual afterwards.  ::)

BTW, anytime I'm in the mountains I have moments of clarity  ;D sometimes of the oh shit variety and other times of the oh my gawd variety. Both are compelling enough to keep me going out to explore and experience.

Jason et al,

I'm curious: how long do you envision the more important of bridges being around?  Between your pic and Andy's description, I gather they're going fast.

In any case, well done and, per usual, fantastic photos.  30 keepers out of 4 days is good odds.  Well, for some of us.
-s

I know that Skykilo was up on the mountain again, and he would surely know better than I do. But...in my opinion it seems to be melting out fast! I think that it will still be pretty good for a few weekends of skiing off the top, although the bridge we crossed on the finger won't be around for long. Maybe if you went climbers left before 12.5 you may be able to find another way to point success. Mike's blog http://www.mountrainierclimbing.blogspot.com/ has good updates on the mountain. Check it out.

You can climb to the cleaver on the left instead of heading onto the Nisqually Glacier.  That way should be fine.  But it is significantly steeper.  I think up that way, then down the Nisqually is a good strategy.  Skiing over crevasses seems much safer to me than climbing over them; perhaps I even used equations to illustrate that on this very website once upon a time.  Fuhrer Finger still looked pretty good yesterday.  As long as you don't mind skiing over rocks at the bottom it should still be good for a few weeks.

Here's a photo of the three Wilson Routes (much better for Wilson HW and Thumb tho)
from the bottom of the Turtle yesterday.

Come now, Jason: I had the up-and-over revelation from 12.5k the day I was there with Hannah and Casey.  Sunset Ridge was schweet but also very scary. 

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