See final trip report for this Mount Rainer ski descent
Update – Sunday AM:
Sounds like it was a terrific climb and ski, with a bit of battling through wet and scrappy weather to keep it real. The crew is back in Seattle now, with the Colorado “jet set mountaineering” contingent heading home tomorrow. Pretty good round-trip time for a Rainier ski descent starting and ending in Colorado!
Update – Saturday PM:
Just got this Spot Messenger OK from Louie. Looks like they’re back at parking. I’m assuming they pulled off a ski descent of the mega-classic Fuhrer Finger route! Congratulations! Resulting Google Map embedded below:
I suddenly find myself glued to the Mount Rainier webcams to see what kind of weather the boys are experiencing. I’m pretty sure they’re getting started sometime today, the goal being a climb and ski descent via Fuhrer Finger. Webcams. Amazing. It’s a wonder any of us get any work done! Click the webcam images for excellent enlarged versions.
Update, Friday PM:
Well well, we just got a Spot Messenger OK email from Louie.
Still taken from webcam, with Fuhrer Finger ski route marked.
Aha, and here is the Camp Muir remote telemetry, so we know just how wet and scrappy it is up there!
25 comments
Yes, that mountain view is from Paradise. In the view the Muir Snowfield is to the right of the trees, Camp Muir at the top roughly over the treetops in the view. The closest slope was once a ski hill, with a rope tow.
What a great route and mountain to ski! Good luck, we’ll be waiting a cool TR.
Rando, thanks. I’ve skied it once and it didn’t look quite like I pictured it, probably because of camera distortion.
Go team!
Best of luck to them. It must be great to be able to just watch the weather and take a weekend to go for it, rather than find a window, hope for the best, and get turned around after a 24 hour drive. Can’t wait for the TR.
Hmmm, the webcams are not loading. Probably too much traffic from WildSnow and we got blocked! We’ll see what they look like tomorrow, not long till night anyway…
Here’s a time lapse of the Rainier cam images from today (Friday):
http://zeitcam.com/showcam.php?cam=rainier&day=20090612
Looks like they had some weather to contend with starting about mid day.
Got a call from Jordan about 5 yesterday from where they camped, said they had 65 degrees much of the day and were baked. Temps were dropping and some clouds moving in. Jordan is in tracking mode on the SPOT (my request…) and last message came in at 8:37am today and they were almost to 12,000 feet.
Just got a new one at 9:08, now at 12,217.
Glad to have all these eyes watching!
Apologies if this info you already have…looks like summit about 12:57, now at about 9300′ at 2:45. No luck with the webcams!
Yeah, I think we crashed the webcams!
Sounds like they got the ski descent done!
I believe they did! Can’t wait for pictures!
They are back at the starting point…..the two hour lull had me confused, but they started down again at 5:44. Thought they might have decided to spend the night at high camp. Stories to come, no doubt
Probably waiting for a cloud lift… too bad we don’t have the webcams!
You are absolutely right. (Why am I not surprised. about that..) They got to camp just as thunderstorms hit and got in the tents for a couple of hours. The SPOT was in Jordan’s pack under a rock …
Looks like the webcams are up again.
Jordan mentioned some whacked out scheme about sneaking over to Mount Hood for a quick one today. Are they going to surprise us?
Hood is looking good today, webcam:
http://www.mthood.info/cameras/mt-hood-webCam-timberline.html
I saw the cams – lovely!
Mt. Hood…hmmmm
I’d better turn the tracker back on…
Just heard from Louie, he said they were a bit tired and skipping Hood. Apparently they had 2,000 vert of fantastic skiing, but paid for it with another 2,000 vert of difficult skiing that included waist high nieve penitente.
Sounds like they did a great job. Apparently there was hardly anyone else on the mountain, so that made it special.
No wonder they are tired. It was enough for one weekend anyway!
I saw the pictures of the nieve penitente on other trip reports…does it break when you ski it? Do you go over, around, through it?
The problem is it generally doesn’t break when you ski it. At a certain point you have to take off your skis, which they had to do lower down on the mountain. Smaller ones, when softened by the sun, can be skied through. But trying to ski ones that are too big is a good way to get hurt.
Looks other worldly. And Rainier is in the clouds now on the webcam..
You and Louie will have a good time comparing ski stories from this mountain.
Thanks for the updates and information along the way!
Penitentes eh? I have never had anything bigger than sun cups to contend with, so the big ones must be a real sight! Great job on a fine descent Louie and friends.
wow, cool. i hope to ski that mt someday
listening to t.storms roll over me here in (not nyc)ny, ahh.. summer
what a techno world, i hear a father worried about his son..
and even though i am relatively young, i am marveling at the way we are able to view/follow/live information..
it is something,
godspeed, i will ski that bump at somepoint i think..
Hey Lou,
Nice updates! Back in town now, and ready for the next adventure. But we didn’t have to take off our skis. The only place they came off was the climb back out of the Nisqually glacier down below camp. The penitentes section was mashed taters by the time we got there and made for the possibility of keeping the sticks on. Incredible weekend! We had a strong crew, and a bunch of fun doing it!
J
Hi Jordan, good job. Cool you kept the planks on, but removal of the skis down low would have been no big deal in terms of doing the “ski descent,” in my opinion. That said, I’d like to do that thing in the huge style of skiing all 10,000 vert down to the highway!
It was a great trip indeed. We got lucky on the softened penitentes. You raised a fine mountaineer and person Lou. It was like climbing with someone with 10 years more experience than his age. A real pleasure. Looking forward to the next adventure.
Comments are closed.