July 29, 2007, Mount Adams - SW Chutes

7/29/07

WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)

4872

2

Posted by Charlie Hagedorn on 7/30/07 2:02am

A really fun ski of a fun route with Will T. and his mom, Glennys T.

After a great many was posted (thanks!), and we were stoked. The nice folks at the national weather service ordered up a nice weekend for us, and we were happy.

We made a leisurely stroll to the false summit, enjoying the views along the way, reaching the top of the spur at a little after 2 pm. The south side was well past corn, but the SW chutes turned out to be great. We were all really impressed with the chutes (it was the first time down for all three of us) and marveled at its continuously good conditions to the bottom. Glennys and Will ripped it up. I bit it in the steeper and somewhat runneled exit at the chute's base. Somewhat later, we played multi-dodgerock with some fragmenting rockfall - keep thy eyes open!

We were able to ski to somewhere below 8000' before running shoe/sandal/clogging down the unconsolidated talus, past the nifty mud lake, and down friendly forest slopes to the round-the-mountain trail. Car to car was a little over 15 hours.

The routes:
South Spur: Thin, but in (for the next week or more?). The glissade chute occupies much of the remaining snow isthmus you can see in the photo. Skinning up, with more kickturns than ascending steps for the upper part of the snowfield, was challenging and fun. Boots will be more efficient for the top 500' or so. Discontinuous skiing is possible to the Crescent Glacier.

SW chutes: Thinning, but definitely in. The chute exit will probably melt out first, but it's hard to tell. The only remaining chute is amazingly clear of rockfall itself, but neighboring chutes aren't. Go get it for your very early August turns. Furthermore, it was effectively untracked.

Summit: We didn't choose to head over there, but the standard line is now discontinuous. The line to the East is still in (and looked nice!), but beware the exposure to the bergschrunds of the Klickitat. A continuous summit - SW chutes line was definitely possible yesterday.

Get out and get yours!

7/30/07 3:15am

wow, I'm impressed. That was a good call. I'd have though it was over by now but it just goes to show ya.

8/1/07 6:37am

Anyone up for doing this, this Sunday? My usual partners aren't biting.

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