Climb: Mount Rainier-Ingraham Direct

Date of Climb: 6/24/2006

Trip Report:
My friend and I climbed Rainier via Ingraham Direct in just under 12.5 hours roundtrip from Paradise. It was a great climb with nearly perfect conditions. The toughest part turned out to be the descent from Camp Muir to Paradise.



We arrived at 6 pm yesterday evening to register and rested until our departure, which was just before 11 pm Friday night. The route was virtually entirely snow from parking lot to summit. At 11 pm there was still some light in the sky. As we ascended Muir snowfield, we gazed at the star-filled sky. Temps were still warm and we were sweating like crazy!



We made Camp Muir in reasonable time and pressed onward. It was eerily quiet at Camp Muir because all the parties had already left for the climb. We could see the last couple lights rounding the corner onto the Ingraham, but we knew there were probably many more ahead.



We caught up very fast and could see dozens of headlamps lining the DC route. The Ingraham Direct route was a great choice because of it directness and it allowed us to pass the multitudes of people ascending the DC route. We had to jump one large crevasse on the Ingraham Direct. A party just ahead of us had just belayed the crossing, but told us the platform/lip on the other side was solid so we jumped. Furthermore, several snow bridges on the route are weakening and thinning. It definitely looks like the hot spell of late will put the Ingraham Direct route out of commission soon, or at least take the "direct" out of it.



We were able to pass all the groups slogging up the DC route which was excellent. I felt great on the upper slopes of the mountain and we arrived at the summit at 6:30 am and then chilled in the crater for over a half an hour. It was a relatively warm and calm summit for Rainier - at least compared to my previous ascents. Not a cloud in the sky and views from Baker near the Canadian Border to Mount Jefferson in central Oregon.

We chose the DC route for descent to avoid the weakening snow bridges on the Ingraham Direct as the sun warmed the slopes. The DC was not very fun to descend and was probably more time consuming than descending Ingraham Direct.



The descent went ok untiil we reached the Muir Snowfield. Snow conditions were not conducive for glissading and somebody kicked steps up through existing glissade chutes making them impossible to use and angering me. The descent off the Muir Snowfield, which we thought would be a fun and relaxing glissade, turned into a nightmarish snow slog. In the later stages of this slog I postholed awkwardly resulting in some ligament in my knee tweaking. That put the icing on the cake for my tired legs and the rest of the way down was probably the most difficult part of the climb. I wish we had skis. After what seemed like forever, we arrived at the parking lot at 11:25 am. We weren't trying to force a fast time, but between breaks and slogging (instead of glissading) down Muir Snowfield, there were at least a couple hours that could have been shaved off.

Overall a great climb with a fantastic partner.



Gear Notes:
standard glacier gear

Approach Notes:
99% snow from parking lot to summit.

You said that skis would have been nice. I will be making my first attempt of Rainier July 5. I did Shasta last year and skis would have been very helpful. Is a ski descent safe and efficient of the DC route?

Looks like you had a nice climb, hope mine sees your same success.


IdaClimber

Wow. good job, you guys are fast. these warmer temps will definately start melting down those snow bridges.. too bad, was hoping to do the ingram direct soon.

Idaclimb-
You can easily ski from Muir (10,000 feet) to Paradise. It would make the descent much more enjoyable. As the DC starts to melt out, skiing it could be troublesome. There are some who do, so it will depend on your risk tolerance.

That is fast time!
I climbed the ID last Thursday night (june 30th) with a friend and thought I'd give a little update on conditions.
The weather was very warm and there was some debris from icefall at the start of the route. We moved quickly somewhat following some faint footsteps up. We also had the route to ourselves and were able to move fast. We couldn't quite follow the steps from before because many new crevasses had opened up just in perhaps the past few days. I could see in several places where footsteps ended in a crevasse and started on the other side, but much to big to jump. Finally we encountered a huge crevasse about 15+ feet wide that had footsteps leading right up to it, and taking off from the other side. I'm guessing that a massive snowbridge had just collapsed. But with a little backtracking and some tricky work on the icefall to the right, we were able to find a pretty direct way past it.

Then when you are getting pretty close to the end of the route, you go left at some more icefall debris and can almost go straight up from there.. Then the long slog to the summit.

Hope that helps anyone.