July 14, 2007, Flett Glacier, Rainier
7/14/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3618
3
Nice skiing on the Flett on Saturday. I discovered on the way down that you can almost link snowpatches from Spray Park and stay mostly on snow if you know the area. I don't, so I took the climber's trail up the divide (mostly bare). Only got to about 8,300 ft. or so between Echo and Observation (the melted-out strip before the Russell) due to in-town commitment. Skiied a nice, steep roller (a little ice) on the North lobe before choss-hopping over to the the lower headwall. One look at the upper headwall had me cursing my late start. Just one rocky spot and a couple very small cracks in an otherwise sweet, steep slope with a spicy entrance.
The skiing below the headwall was good, with just minor suncups. Didn't get grabby until it flattened out. Much better than Interglacier a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely make a point to do this tour earlier in the season next year. Great area.
Mostly useless vid here.
The skiing below the headwall was good, with just minor suncups. Didn't get grabby until it flattened out. Much better than Interglacier a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely make a point to do this tour earlier in the season next year. Great area.
Mostly useless vid here.
Andy , thanks alot .I just got back into town and your report is very helpful. i think I'll go up there and leave my marks.
Hey Andy, nice meeting ya up there. We found the same conditions you described. It was definately a fine weekend for making some July turns! We stayed the night at the base of the Flett and Saturday was the better day of the weekend. Woke up Sunday to partly sunny skies, but by about 11:00 the clouds rolled in out of nowhere and just stayed. On our ski out back to Spray Pk we attempted to link the patches together but quickly lost our way in the 30 ft visibility. After making a couple of semi-circles and bushwacking for awhile we finally found the trail. (I got to use my compass for the 1st time!) All in all it was a great weekend and well worth getting lost.
Saturday was definetly the better day. although Merk got Snowdawg Jr. to do a steeper slope on Sunday. And learning to navigate in poor visibility will help him in the future. Good weekend for 2/3 of our group.
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