August 12, 2007, Panhandle Gap, Mt. Rainier
8/12/07
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3125
1
Three of us hiked up to Summerland Sunday morning, in spite of the crappy weather. We had a rough plan (after talking with the rangers) of heading up Fryingpan glacier. Visibility at Summerland was pretty bad, though, so we stayed on the Wonderland trail with the idea of reaching Panhandle Gap. It looked like there would be some snow there.
About a half mile from Summerland there is a small lake, we found some snow there, but things looked better back towards Meany Crest. We traversed through snow and rocks back to the bottom of a tongue of snow at the base of a small cirque, elevation 6400'.
We skinned up 600' and it started to get steeper, which was a little spooky because we couldn't see too much. It looked like on a clearer day it would be easy to find your way up onto the Fryingpan, and also some fun steeps to ski. We weren't in the mood to have rocks come tumbling down out of the fog on us, so we took off our skins and skiid down. It was quite nice, an inch or so corn on top of small sun cups. By this time it was raining pretty hard, so instead of another lap we headed back to Summerland shelter to regroup and eat before the gorgeous hike down.
With all of the cool, cloudy weather, all of the flowers and plants look like it's mid-July. A couple of the cliffs jumped out of the mist like Ansel Adams photos. All things considered, a great day, and fabulous scenery in spite of the weather.
About a half mile from Summerland there is a small lake, we found some snow there, but things looked better back towards Meany Crest. We traversed through snow and rocks back to the bottom of a tongue of snow at the base of a small cirque, elevation 6400'.
We skinned up 600' and it started to get steeper, which was a little spooky because we couldn't see too much. It looked like on a clearer day it would be easy to find your way up onto the Fryingpan, and also some fun steeps to ski. We weren't in the mood to have rocks come tumbling down out of the fog on us, so we took off our skins and skiid down. It was quite nice, an inch or so corn on top of small sun cups. By this time it was raining pretty hard, so instead of another lap we headed back to Summerland shelter to regroup and eat before the gorgeous hike down.
With all of the cool, cloudy weather, all of the flowers and plants look like it's mid-July. A couple of the cliffs jumped out of the mist like Ansel Adams photos. All things considered, a great day, and fabulous scenery in spite of the weather.