Entries from Mount Rainier
The Summit Teams departed Camp Muir for an early alpine start today but were forced to turn around at approximately 11,400' due to high winds, poor visibility and reportedly high avalanche conditions. The Five Day Summit Climb May 25 - 29 and the Four Day Summit Climb May 26 - 29 teams returned safely to Camp Muir and rested for a few hours before starting their decent to Paradise.
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Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
The Summit Team was forced to turn around today at 12,100' due to high avalanche danger. They will be starting their descent to Paradise.
The Expedition Skill Seminar - Muir checked in this morning from Camp Muir. The team started their summit attempt today but were forced to turn around at Ingraham Flats due to high winds and blowing snow.
Everyone was resting at Camp Muir and they will spend the afternoon practicing some knot training, fixed line travel and crevasse rescue scenarios.
The Four Day Summit Climb May 20 - 23, 2011 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning under clear skies. The team experienced light winds and cold temperatures on their climb from Camp Muir to the summit. They spent some time on the summit before starting their descent.
Congratulations to the teams!
RMI Guides Jake Beren and Andres Marin checked in at 7:45 a.m. PST to report they were just a few minutes from reaching the crater rim of Mt. Rainier. The teams were experiencing lights winds and cool temperatures with a cloud deck below around 7,500'. The teams enjoyed some time on the summit before starting their descent to Camp Muir.
Our Five Day Summit Climb May 14 - 18, 2011 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today under beautiful blue skies. This is our first program of the 2011 Summer Season and we are pumped that the team was able to make the top. According to RMI Guide Casey Grom "This is as good as it gets!"
The team was beginning their descent from the summit ridge shortly after 10 am Pacific time. The group will return to Camp Muir, rest and repack before making the final descent to Paradise.
Congratulations to RMI Guides Casey Grom and Adam Knoff and their teams!
This is the RMI Alaska Seminar checking in from 7,300 feet on the Kahiltna Glacier. We awoke to another beautiful day, beautiful lenticular cloud over Denali this morning as we looked out tents. We quickly saddled up our gear and headed to training. We enjoyed some training on the fixed lines and were lowered into a crevasse.
All day it seemed like we were in a snow globe with warm sun on us through the clouds but continual snow. Kind of amazing up here how you can be in a base layer with it snowing and still feeling the warmth of the sun, but we somehow managed to do that today.
We are all settled in tonight and everyone is resting comfortably. It is another cool night. The clouds moved in and it was snowing lightly again when we went to bed. We are looking forward to another nice day tomorrow. Take care.
RMI Guide Andy Bond
The Nisqually Glacier is the most easily viewed of all the glaciers on Mt. Rainier. Facing the Paradise Visitor Center, it runs four miles from the 14,410-foot summit down to about 4,500 feet in the Nisqually Valley. At about 12,500 feet the ice forms a giant cliff where the glacier breaks apart over a large rocky step and smashes itself back together 1,000 feet below. Usually unskiable, the heavy snows this winter have filled in one side of the cliff and a continuous line appeared, begging to be skied.
My friends Tyler Jones, Andy Bond and I had a random convergence in the Northwest after being on separate agendas for the winter. Tyler had been ski-guiding in La Grave, France, Andy spends his winters in British Columbia, and I had just returned from a trip to Haines, AK. Andy had recently been bombarding me with emails about how the ski conditions on Rainier were about to 'go off' so we all met up in Ashford, WA, to wait for some good weather.
After a few days in town, the necessary conditions stacked in our favor, and we took the opportunity to pull off a big line on Rainier. In the Northwest, a full winter of storms on an endless conveyor belt had been pounding the mountain with snow. Now, with an approaching high pressure system, we had a few days of guaranteed sunny weather. So on Thursday, April 22, we left Paradise in a snow storm hoping that the forecast would pan out as advertised and once at Camp Muir the weather would break. Typically we could each do the trip to Muir without the aid of GPS in any conditions. We have over 200 summits of Rainier between the three of us. But this year every landmark is covered in snow, making navigation impossible without the aid of electronics. A quick consult with the GPS was all we needed to find our way to Muir.
Once there, we packed into the tiny RMI hut that normally sleeps two. Poor Andy had to sleep on three coolers; it was either that or the snowy floor. The weather was pretty cold most of the night so there was no rush for us to start climbing until the sun came up. To our surprise there was another party climbing that day. They had left about an hour ahead of us and it was nice to follow their track for the first part of the day. We climbed up towards the Gibraltar Ledges route. This gave us a great vantage point of our desired ski route and I was able to take some pics in case we needed to use them as a quick-reference guide on the descent.
Once we caught up to the other party, we took our turn breaking trail towards the summit. Conditions were great and we were able to make quick progress to the top. Our total climbing time from Camp Muir was four hours on the dot. Not bad for carrying skis on our backs! On top we spent some time checking out the different aspects of the mountain and taking photos of the gargoyle-like features of rime-ice; created as water vapor from the recent storm cycle beat against the mountain, freezing instantly. The wind was howling, so soon after, we clicked into our skis and started downhill towards the top of the ice cliff.
The upper part of the mountain skied nicely. Rainier is like a big dome and the upper reaches aren't extremely steep and the snow was firm but edge-able. Once we dropped about 1,000 feet, however, the slope angle increased dramatically and the snow became even more firm. At 13,000' we could see directly down the glacier to the top of the ice cliff. From here we were committed, and any slip could result in a long slide off the cliff. Precise, controlled ski turns were necessary and we skied one at a time in pitches to keep an eye on each other.
The line through the ice cliff was fairly straight forward. We trended gradually right, through an ever narrowing gap between big rock cliffs and the edge of the ice. The snow conditions steadily improved as we dropped lower on the mountain. In total we skied about 3,500 feet of terrain in what we considered a "no-fall" zone. The stress of all the exposure relented bit-by-bit as we descended, and by the time we exited the ice cliff section we were relaxed enough to fully enjoy the pitch out from under the cliff.
We then threaded our way out of the large amphitheater formed by the ice cliff and through a myriad of crevasses onto the benign slopes of the Muir Snowfield. There were several groups of skiers there enjoying the fresh powder and sun. We stopped to chat before continuing on our way and they congratulated us on our journey. The snow was so good from here that we decided to drop below the elevation of the parking lot all of the way to the Nisqually Bridge at 3,500 feet. We knew that this could mean a long wait for a hitch hike back to the car but the day was going too well to worry about that. Plus, the lure of getting the longest ski run in the 'Lower 48' on top of a new route on Rainier was too much to resist.
I think we waited for a total of 15 seconds before a really nice guy from Fort Lewis Army Base gave me a ride back to Paradise to get my car. Our luck was good all day!
whoaaa i would love to climb and ski that!
Posted by: fortuna major on 4/28/2011 at 4:11 pm
There were many bright spots to what was otherwise a very cold, snowy and windy week on Mt. Rainier. Our team met on Sunday for our six -day Expedition Seminar and our day of prep was well used as we got our gear all ready for a possible push to Camp Muir the next day. However, the weather on Monday was marginal for moving to Muir, so we got a great day of training on the mountain and camped at about 6,200’ below Panorama point.
Tuesday was blue bird and made for excellent hiking conditions to Camp Muir which the entire team reached in good shape. From there the weather conditions deteriorated and Wednesday saw temperatures reaching 2 degrees F with winds averaging 30-40 mph. But that did not keep us from training. Our team only ascended a few feet higher than Camp Muir at 10,188’, but we had a great experience and learned a ton, much of which came courtesy of Mother Nature. Friday the winds abated enough to allow us to descend back to Paradise, although it was still windy, snowy and a white out much of the time. But everybody did really well cramponing and snowshoeing down to Paradise.
We later celebrated the week and our time together sharing a burger and a cold one at our favorite local restaurant. From the comfort of the dining room I could take stock of the really bright spot of the week: sharing time with a remarkable group of individuals.
RMI Guide Brent Okita
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Categories: Mount Rainier
“UNLEASH THE BEAST!”
That was the battle cry for RMI guide Geoff Schellens and I (Kel Rossiter) as we explored Red Rocks Canyon (Nevada) in preparation for the AMGA Rock Guide Exam in April. It seems that a few years back a friend of Geoff’s was climbing way above his last piece of rock protection and his belayer called up to him “Place a piece!” The fellow climbing heard the command as “Unleash the beast!” let out a yell, placed a piece, and successfully powered for the top. Throughout the course of our two weeks of training and the six-day exam in Red Rocks, Nevada, Geoff and I both placed lots of rock protection pieces and certainly unleashed the beast!
Familiarity with terrain is a useful advantage when guiding, so Geoff & I met up in late March to get oriented to the amazing range of climbing options and areas that Red Rocks offers and to hone our rock guiding skills in that terrain. It was a lot of hard work and it was a great experience. We’d done the same thing last year, prepping for the Rock Guide Course (the second level of the AMGA Rock program) and that was a great opportunity for me to work with another talented RMI guide toward a shared climbing objective. This year was similar, but different—we definitely enjoyed the climbing and good times together, but we were also definitely focused on the rigorous exam ahead.
Often, when people are a bit anxious about something they get a “tunnel vision” that causes them to overlook the big picture; fortunately, throughout the course of the prep and exam process the beauty of Red Rocks provided Geoff and I with many moments that prompted us to keep perspective and remember the big picture. On our first day of climbing, we headed out toward the Oak Creek area. Along the way we came across a boulder upon which someone had placed the majestic skull of a sun-bleached, full-curl desert bighorn sheep. Nothing like majesty and mortality to remind one to enjoy each moment! A few days later in White Rock Springs we encountered an entire herd of full-curl bighorns; their agility on the rock seemed to mock our efforts. On the exam, with a winter weather front coming in on high winds, I was topping out on the final pitch of a climb up the “Mescalito” and found a butterfly gently moving its wings in the shelter of the wide crack I was climbing. On another day, descending from the summit of Rainbow Mountain we entered into an astounding sinewy canyon of perfect sandstone baths and gigantic ponderosa trees rooted in the moist vein of desert soil. Moving through the anxieties and unknowns of the exam process, these moments helped to frame things in perspective indeed.
By the time the exam arrived, Geoff and I felt ready. In six short days the exam was over. It’ll be a week or so until we get the final marks from the exam, but regardless of outcome each of us feel positive about the entire event. It was a pleasure to connect with a fellow RMI guide and to work together toward this shared climbing goal. We’re thankful for the learning the course offered, the good times we had together climbing, the wonderful nature of Red Rocks that we enjoyed, and the support of the RMI/Eddie Bauer guide grant in a making all of possible for us—and we look forward to sharing the skills we honed there with RMI clients on many a future cliff and summit, “unleashing the beast!”
RMI Guide Kel Rossiter
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Thanks to Casey, Adam, Kel, and Gilbert for a great adventure!
Posted by: John Krueger on 5/22/2011 at 8:08 am
CONGRATS!!! So excited to see you all in a few weeks!!!
Posted by: Shannon on 5/19/2011 at 12:40 pm
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