South Buttress on Cutthroat Peak

June 4, 2016

With a casual start from Seattle, we left the car at about 1pm. The view from the road showed that most of the approach and route were free of snow, so it seemed like a fun afternoon adventure. We had to take our shoes off to cross the stream and then headed up the steep trail until we hit snow below the notch.

We were on the route and simul-climbing within a couple of hours and enjoyed the rambling bits interspersed with steeper sections, all very doable in approach shoes. We hit the top of the main route by 4:30pm or so and then took a bit longer to get to the true summit, in part because we ended up dangling a rope for the party behind us as they weren't comfortable with the airy, unprotected step to get past the notch above "The Humps." We were on top by 5:30pm and back to the car a bit after 7pm. Nice day and awesome views.

South Ridge on Black Peak

May 14, 2016

Peter and I departed Seattle at 5am and left the car at 8am for a quick ski tour up Black Peak. Since Peter had been up Black Peak before, we made an error in only snapping photos of the guidebook beta and not looking at the map carefully off the bat. We followed the summer trail for the first half mile and quickly realized the error of our ways as we 'shwhacked our way through the forest. Thankfully, we got back on track at the plateau below Lake Ann. Whoops!

From there, we made fast progress up and over Heather Pass. It was pretty warm and the snow was relatively soft, but the side-hill ski over to Lewis Lake went fine. We put the skins back on here and recommenced huffing and puffing our way up, passing Wing Lake at about 11am.

We only had to boot a small section up to the South ridge col and were on top of it with a great view to the West of Glacier, Goode, Logan, and Forbidden at noon. Recent warm weather had baked much of the ridge, so we booted up rock for a ways before finding a boot pack in the snow-filled gully to just below the summit.

The scramble up the ridge in ski boots was engaging and fun and the view was phenomenal. We had been worried about the snow on the way down, but cloud cover and a light breeze kept things from getting too wet and heavy. The couloir ski was great and the rest of the way out went quickly with continuous snow to the car. We were back at the car by 2:30pm or so, which seemed pretty quick despite our first mile or so being off the beaten path.

Fuhrer Finger on Mount Rainier

May 7, 2016

“Volcanoes are for skiing.”

— Dale Apgar

The Fuhrer Finger as a spring ascent and ski descent had been on my list for a couple of years. All of my 5 previous Rainier summits had been via carryover routes and had not involved skis, so this ascent felt like almost all Type 1 fun, especially with new, light ski gear.

We took Friday off from work and drove down to Paradise for a casual 1:15pm departure. Snow was continuous to the parking lot, so we started skinning immediately. The snow was slushy, but not terrible on the way up and none of the crevasses were concerning enough to rope up for, so we were quick getting to camp by 5 or so. The wind was out of the East, so all of the windbreaks at 9,000 foot camp were facing the wrong way, so we dug a platform out on the snow on the West side with a view of Adams, Hood, and Saint Helens. Then we napped before dinner, which is one of my favorite mountain activities.

We were up and moving by 5am and the snow was firm enough that it didn't make sense to skin at all—we put the skis on our backs and cramponed across the Wilson in the pre-dawn light. Another party of two was headed up the finger by headlamp when we left camp and we said a quick hello and passed them at about 11,000 feet around 6:15am. The Easterly wind was pretty strong in the morning once we got high enough and our skis were acting like sails, pushing us around quite a bit.

The only tricky route finding happened above the finger at about 12,000 feet. The Nisqually Glacier was too broken up to cross directly, so we skirted it high on the left, ascending some pretty steep, frozen snow to gain the cleaver between the Nisqually and the Kautz.

At about 13,000 feet, we were on familiar territory as the finish was the same as for the Kautz. The large crevasses high on the Nisqually were mostly filled in and we were able to travel pretty directly to the left edge of the crater rim, somewhat protected from the wind until we ascended the last few feet to the summit, which we arrived at around 11:15am. It was cold and blustery, so we quickly packed up and started the ski down.

We waited about 45 minutes just below the saddle to Point Success, expecting the high winds to be keeping the snow from warming up enough to be good for skiing. The ski was super fun and never terribly difficult or high consequence, save the section getting off the cleaver, which I down-climbed given the fact that it was above a gigantic crevasse. The snow above 12,000 feet was pretty icy, but below that, we were protected from the wind and it was baking—we should have just headed straight down. Nevertheless, the finger was quite enjoyable and not too slushy. We were back at camp by 1:30pm and then down to the car after packing up by 3pm.

I have to say, Dale is on to something when he says that "volcanoes are for skiing."