Nisqually Chute on Mount Rainier

March 18, 2023

With warm temperatures and sun predicted for Saturday, Colin and I decided a trip up to Camp Muir was in order. We left Seattle around 7:45am and got increasingly excited as we drove through the park, culminating in playing the Top Gun Anthem as we geared up in the nearly full Paradise parking lot in sun hoodies. We started skinning at 10:20am behind quite the conga line of people—good to see so many out enjoying the park on a beautiful day.

Since the road had been gated all week, the whole area looked pristine, without s-turns and tracks everywhere. We pushed the pace a bit at the beginning, passing a lot of folks, and eventually settling into a nice rhythm above Panorama Point, slowly passing the rest before arriving at Camp Muir alone and with nearly first tracks about 2.5 hours after we’d started up—a pretty awesome experience. After a brief snack, we clicked into our skis and headed for the top of the chute. I’d skied it twice before in varying conditions and wasn’t sure what to expect. What we found was hero heavy corn. We whooped and exclaimed “I can’t believe it’s this good” a series of times as we stopped to let our legs recover.

It was lovely top to bottom but clear things were warming fast and wouldn’t last for more exploration, so we skinned up to Glacier Vista before skiing out. I was expecting the snow to be really heavy and difficult from that point to the car, but it ended up that we were able to glide on the top layer of heavy corn most of the way before just needing to sit in the back seat and take long, slow turns just above Paradise.

What a phenomenal day and what felt like a gateway to spring!

The Slot Couloir on Snoqualmie Mountain

February 12, 2023

Colin suggested we head up to Snoqualmie Pass on Sunday to ski The Slot couloir, hoping that the north-facing snow would be in better shape than most everything else we might find. He was right.

We left Seattle at 7am, which was a painful start for me being 7 weeks into new dad sleep deprivation. We met Mitch and Richard at the Alpental backcountry parking lot and began ascending firm snow with ski crampons shortly after 8am. Our ascent was pretty straightforward weaving our way up the ridge crest and became downright pleasant as we reached more open slopes up high when the sun unexpectedly came out in full force. We stripped down to our t-shirts and soaked in a rare dose Vitamin D.

We took a brief look at the couloir on our way up to the summit and it appeared to be reasonably intimidating, but difficult to judge from above. We continued our way to the top, arriving at about 10:45am, a little under 3 hours since we’d started. We ate lunch and took in the views for a bit before clicking into our skis and shimmying down to the top of the couloir.

Colin wasted no time contemplating and zipped past a large group that wasn’t yet ready to head in at the top. I went next and had a few moments of doubt as the terrain was pretty steep and the entry was only wide enough to side slip, but things quickly became much more manageable and we got to experience some exhilarating turns in the ambiance of Snoqualmie Mountain’s frosty, rocky, North Face. We whooped and hollered our way down and then dog-legged left to catch the skin track back up.

Not much to report from our descent other than the snow became quite heavy and unpleasant as we picked our way through the trees. We were back down at the car about 4 hours and 45 minutes after we’d started, ready for some burgers and beers to round out our Sunday Funday. Great day out!

Tahoma Glacier on Mount Rainier

July 9, 2022

The remote West side of Mount Rainier had been calling to me for years—while driving to and from Paradise and flying to and from Portland, the Tahoma Glacier appears quite majestic as it spills down from the summit, flanked by Liberty Cap and Point Success. A confluence of events aligned to make sense to give it a go with a successful trip report from 2 weeks prior, my buddy Adam being free for 3 days, and a solid forecast.

We drove down relatively early on Saturday morning to get a permit at Longmire before gearing up and starting down the gated Westside Road at 2,800 feet just before 10am. We were on the fence about skis, but decided to bring them, hoping a significant chunk of the glacier would be filled in enough to make them worth it. The party two weeks prior had been successful going up the glacier itself via Emerald Ridge instead of the Puyallup Cleaver and so we crossed our fingers this would work for us as well since it seemed more direct, would put us in the middle of the wild Tahoma Glacier, and had less road walking.

After sauntering up the road for a bit, we arrived at the old Tahoma Creek trail, which very quickly washes out. We found there’s about a mile of mandatory rock hopping on the climber’s left side of the washout before it’s possible to keep on the old trail. In just over 2 hours from the car, we reached the Wonderland Trail ~3.8 miles in, which we were pretty happy with given that we were carrying overnight gear, skis, boots, and glacier gear. After a break here, we headed up to the top of Emerald Ridge.

Things looked pretty anemic from the saddle where we left the Wonderland Trail, but thankfully there was just enough coverage in view once we reached the top of Emerald Ridge. It took us about 4.5 hours to get here from the car. We switched to pants and ski boots, quickly booted across the unsavory, dirty bottom margin of the glacier, and switched to skinning as soon as we could.

We were able to stay unroped for a good ways with most crevasses pinched down pretty well. It was only at 7,600 feet or so where we decided the gaps warranted putting on a rope. We wove our way around a bunch and then were back on an efficient course until 9,000 feet where the glacier was nice and flat and we decided to call it quits 9 hours of approaching into our day and just shy of 7pm. We dug out a nice platform with a wind break, ate dinner with a nice sunset, and conked out with alarms set for 3:15am.

We slept decently well, fueled up, and got going in the morning by 4:15am. The snow was quite firm and so we went straight to boots and crampons with skis on our backs. Through the darkest part of the morning, we thankfully had a bootpack to follow and there were some pretty huge, gaping crevasses to avoid. At about 10,500 feet, we were surrounded by big gaps and weren’t sure it would go, but found a sneaky ramp up and to our right which unlocked the puzzle. From here, we could see it was smooth sailing, albeit relatively steep with firm snow, until the high crevasses around 12,500 feet.

We plodded along, roped relatively close together with an axe in one hand and a whipped in the other for a while, closing in on 12,000 feet, until Adam turned around and said something like, “I feel kinda dizzy…like I could faint.” Being on very firm snow with a massive crevasse below us and knowing these kinds of things rarely get better with higher altitude, we decided it was best to turn around. A huge bummer, given how much energy we’d put in to get there, but the right call.

We walked down a good ways, weaving between big crevasses we could now see down into, before finding a smooth enough section to ski. Way better! We were able to ski down to the tent, where we took a nap for a little bit, packed up, and were able to ski all the way out. There was only one section where we had to slow way down and be quite careful—otherwise it was smooth sailing. We made it from our camp to the bottom of the glacier just above the top of Emerald Ridge in only 25 minutes. Magic.

From here, it was just a painful slog in our trail runners with a lot of weight on our backs. It took us 3.5 hours down from the top of Emerald Ridge to the car. While it was a bummer to not finish the end of the route, it was really cool to get onto a completely new side of the mountain and also to go up the full Tahoma Glacier. While the Puyallup Cleaver looked much more straightforward, it felt natural to head up the gut of the glacier and to test our route-finding skills. I’m sure I’ll be back for it some day…just not soon.