Emmons-Winthrop over the July 4th Weekend

Climbing on the Emmons is still holding strong.  Little has changed on the route since the last post.  This being said, the bridges are becoming wider and thinner with the warm weather.  The crack that spans the alpine meadow at 12,400' is becoming slightly offset and difficult to cross.  Don't be afraid to bump out of the boot pack and find a better way around a feature.  Most of the time this is a wise maneuver, because the previous climbers may have climbed days prior when the span was much smaller.  If you are presented with a crevasse feature, do your best to avoid crossing it where there is a visibly thin bridge.  Instead, try to end run the feature and cross it where it appears to be safer.

Glissade track in the Corridor

The climbing on the Emmons is still fairly direct, and the traverse under the shrund to Liberty saddle is unnecessary.  The safer and easier option is climbing directly up to Columbia Crest from the top of the Alpine Meadow.

Now for a note on descending.  With the warm weather, snow conditions become very sloppy by mid day.  Note that while you are descending to Camp Schurman, you are in glacial terrain the entire way.  this means there are visible and non-visible crevasses present.  Resist the urge to rest your tired legs, sit down in the snow and glissade.  This is VERY Dangerous!  If you are unable to arrest your slide, there is a very high likelihood of sliding over a serac or into a crevasse.

Lastly, please remember that when you are climbing up to Camp Schurman, and Descending from Camp Schurman via the Emmons, please rope up until you hit camp Curtis.  This zone is glaciated and there are crevasses present.  It may seem like a benign zone and it may be a pain to dig out your glacier gear and throw the rope on, but it is no different than the Emmons Glacier above Camp Schurman, So please rope up for this
section.

On a happier note, the climbing has been incredible and the weather, splitter.  We look forward to seeing you up on the mountain.  Safe Climbing!

Hazardous Midsummer Conditions

Although summer weather was delayed arriving to Mount Rainier this season, strong high pressure and warm temperatures over the last few weeks have taken their toll on the upper mountain. Despite good snow coverage early on this spring, recent hot weather has begun to melt out many of the routes at a rapid rate. Climbers, guides and rangers alike have been reporting persistent rock fall, hollow bergschrunds, icefall and tedious glacial navigation on some of the mountains popular routes.

Although some parties have been continuing to climb routes like Liberty Ridge, Ptarmigan Ridge, Fuhrer Finger, etc... nearly all of them have reported near misses and unsafe/unstable conditions. In addition, some parties have even had team members pegged by rockfall while on route. At this stage in the summer, climbing rangers are asking public climbers to avoid these routes in order to minimize risk. Just because you might be able to sneak up a route, lucky and unscathed DOES NOT mean you should. Although many routes may no longer be "in season" here on the mountain, there is still plenty of fun to be had climbing other routes like the Disappointment Cleaver, the Emmons and the Kautz Glacier. Waiting until next spring to tick off a new, non-standard route may very well be your best bet.

With that said, any climbers that wish to speak more thoroughly on the topic are more than welcome to call the Paradise CIC (360.569.6641) or White River WIC (360.569.6670). Rangers there may be able to answer your questions or connect you with climbing rangers directly.

Kautz Glacier Conditions

Climbing rangers were able to get some photos of the Kautz Glacier Route during helicopter operations yesterday. Snow is melting fast and we can expect some ice ptiches to be forming in the near future.

Kautz Headwall and Glacial Finger

Kautz Glacier

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Muir Snowfield Conditions

Summer has come to Mt Rainier. The avalanche Lilly's are out and snow conditions are changing rapidly. For those who are looking to make a trip up to the Muir Snowfield for a hike or ski you can expect variable trail conditions with firm snow in the AM and slush in the PM. The main route out of paradise up the Skyline trail is patchy snow and melting out quickly. Skiers looking to skin directly from the parking lot will be out of luck over the next few days and will need to carry skis to behind Alta Vista before starting their tour.

During this initial melt out the newly exposed meadows and plants are very delicate. Keep your travel to continuous snow and melted out trail sections. Though walking on dry ground is tempting stay on established routes. For Skiers, this means that you have to chose lines through the paradise meadows that link you back to trails. Please do not ski until the snow runs out and then march across a meadow to get back to the trail.

Travel on snow is still mostly continuous from the back side of Alta Vista up to Glacier view, just below the Pan Point switchback. The upper switchback is melted out as are several rockbands above it on the way to pebble creek. The Pan Face winter route is closed so please keep to the summer switchback trail. On skis expect to take them off and carry 3-4 times before you are above Pebble creek.

The Snowfield itself still has a lot of snow on it but it is starting to get heavily textured with sun cups and melt runnels. With the continuing hot weather these features will be increasing in size. Several boot pack paths have developed for up hill travel, and a number of glassade troughs exist on the steeper slopes. Watch your runout, on any glassade!
If you are on skis / boards, the early afternoon snow conditions are decent but the highly variable surface makes for challenging skiing.

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Disappointment Cleaver Conditions 7/6/2017

Bottom Line: The DC is climbing nicely now but stay tuned for route changes in the next two weeks.

The route from Paradise to Camp Muir is still 90% snow. There are asphalt trails melting out near Paradise and dirt trails near 7000'. But for the most part it's still snow from the parking lot.

The main camping area at Muir is in the 'Trough'. There's plenty of room there for many tents. Please help the Rangers out by keeping the top of the big snow roll free from tents just in case we need to use the flat area during a rescue. Thanks!

The route across the Cowlitz glacier is still very direct. There are rocks on the glacier all the way across to Cathedral Gap so keep your eyes and ears open for rockfall, even at night.

Cathedral Gap is almost entirely rock at this point so please shorten up your rope and keep it out of the rocks. This will keep your rope cleaner and it will help prevent knocking rocks down on climbers below you.

The camp at Ingraham Flats is still looking good. Some really nice guys helped everyone out last week by carrying down used blue bags that were left by another team (gross!). The Ranger's have also picked up a few errant poops over the past week. Come on people, we can do better than this.

Ingraham Flats and the DC

The Cleaver is melting out at the bottom. The lower third of it is patches of rock and snow. Again, please get your rope up and out of the rocks by shortening it so you don't clobber anyone below you with rockfall. The trail is notoriously hard to follow this time of year so pay attention as you're climbing up and down. The upper two thirds is entirely snow and the guides are doing a great job of keeping the route at a nice climbing angle.

Above the Cleaver the route still passes below The Tsunami. The guides did move the route downhill about 100' below it but you are still exposed to significant overhead hazard as you pass below it. The area is easily identifiable at night since you pass through a large debris field. Move quickly and efficiently through this area.

The Tsunami

In the coming weeks the route will probably be forced to go down another 100-200' or up and over the Tsunami so stay tuned for that.

From the traverse under the Tsunami to the crater rim the climbing is straight-forward but there are several crevasse crossings to deal with. The bridges across the crack will thin and weaken as the season progresses so be mindful of the temperatures and your climbing time. Bridges that are solid when frozen will weaken significantly by mid morning and will be slushy by the afternoon.

Several teams had extremely long summit days over the 4th of July weekend. On team left Camp Muir at 10PM Saturday and returned at 6PM Sunday. That's a 20 hour summit day! The majority of the team was exhausted and the possibility of them rescuing themselves in the event of an accident was slim at best. This increases the risk for everyone else on the mountain, especially teams climbing near them.

Access to West Side Routes

For those looking to access the Mowich Face and routes in that area, Mowich Rd is open.

Also, checkout where the snow line and snow melt is at on the WEST side as of July 6th.

Photo from Mirror Lake Area

Pyramid Peak from Mirror Lake Area

West Side From Mt Ararat

 Approaching from Longmire, via the Wonderland trail, you will hit snow around 4900ft. You might actually need to use you GPS just to navigate to Mirror Lakes area. And expect to get your feet wet in that area-lots of water running under the snow and it's punchy, thin snow that covers a lot of ground.