July 1, Kautz Glacier, Rainier

after getting to 11k on the 26 on the south tacoma headwall with Sky (turned aroud due to lots of rockfall, icefall and timeing) , it was nice to make it a little higher on Rainier yesterday. I met Sky, Tim, and Amar (whom it was an honer to meet) The four of us started around 3 and enjoyed great moonlit snow up the nisqually and wilson. The clouds came and went throughout the morning and i started to dought the validity of the"sunny forecast". The winds were really starting to pick up at the top of the turtle, the prospect of going further was looking ugly, we decided to split up, Sky and i continued up the "ice chute" (which was pretty icy) towrds p.s. , Sky freeclimbed the chute, and gave me a belay on the upper section, my aluminum crapons and one ice tool/+ g. axe were'nt inspireing to much confidence. The snow got alot more winterlike above the ice chute, and we slogged on to point success. We turned around at 13800 because of crappy vis due clouds and deteriorating weather,, skiing down the upper part was a leg burner, as i was pretty tiered and the snow was variable(good side of variable),, we rapped down the ice chute in two raps,using a bollard and a ice thread, leaving behind only a couple feet of webbing. I was expecting hard neve for the remaining descent due to cloud cover, but the snow conditions got better and better, from the bottom of the turtle down the snow was ideal corn...