Amar_Andalkar

Nice trip report, Keith, it was great meeting you and Kevin up there. Fun to hang out with you both and watch the fireworks too. Thanks again for your work resetting that ladder near 13200 ft on the descent, and for your very kind offer to let me rope up with your team if the descent got too sketchy for my comfort level. I posted a long trip report over on TAY a few days ago: July 3-5, 2015, Mount Rainier, 4th of July Summit Crater Camping via Disappointment Cleaver

Although that is a crazy and sick ski descent, it is definitely not Thermogenesis. It is some random un-named line off of Liberty Ridge. Their line == not Thermogenesis: Thermogenesis is just out of that picture to looker's left. It is the obvious deep couloir visible in their previous image: See the route photos on p.204 and 207 of Mount Rainier: A Climbing Guide (2nd ed, 2005) by Mike Gauthier, which should make things quite clear. The blog post correctly makes no mention of "Thermogenesis", so the two who skied it must know it is a different line. They should give it some cool name! Their line actually looks safer than Thermogenesis, since it is less exposed to the overhanging ice cliff and serac falls from it.

I'm not sure why you're so negative about the webcam, Loren. It's a useful tool, just like the NWAC telemetry is (although based on your comments, I'm guessing that you're in favor of removing the NWAC telemetry site at Muir too ??). I doubt the money for the webcam came from the climbing program budget, it is more likely that Stefan found another source for those funds from a different NPS budget (although I didn't ask him that specifically, so I don't know). By seeing current conditions up high, above the cloud decks which block the view up from Paradise, it will potentially save you (and anyone else who decides to use it for trip planning) more in gas money on a single trip than the entire cost of the annual climbing pass. Although I'm annoyed to have to pay a climbing fee, in real terms its cost is essentially nothing: gas for a single roundtrip from Seattle to Paradise is 12 gallons in my vehicle, which at current prices is over $48, more than the cost of the newly-inflated $43 annual climbing pass. One saved trip due to seeing poor conditions on the webcam despite a good-looking NWS forecast would cover those dollars. And a single trip to Muir or higher which I actually decide to drive down there based on seeing sunny weather on the webcam above a thick cloud deck (instead of sitting at home due to a NWS forecast of mostly cloudy with showers) would be immeasurably valuable, at least to me.

A new webcam was installed at Camp Muir on May 18, 2011, by supervisory climbing ranger Stefan Lofgren. The camera is a StarDot NetCam SC Vandal Resistant Dome with a wide-angle lens, mounted on the NWAC instrument tower at the west end of the plywood guide-service hut extension (the "Gombu"): The new webcam (inside the clear inverted dome) mounted on the NWAC instrument tower. The view looks south towards Mounts Adams, Hood, and Saint Helens, and includes the upper Muir Snowfield. This should provide an important new tool for trip planning, especially under weather conditions which produce a thick cloud deck at the elevation of Paradise with sunny skies above (very common lately, and typically very common in late spring and early summer). Images are 1024x768 pixels and set to upload once per hour at 15 minutes after the hour, which is apparently all the current communications link can handle. The camera finally went live today June 2 for a few hours, managing to upload several images starting after 2pm. The time stamp on the image is incorrect for now, showing January 2000. Here is a nice image from 7:17am on June 3, 2011: The current image can be found at http://www.nps.gov/webcams-mora/muir.jpg. I've added this view to my Mount Rainier Paradise WebCams page now, and it also displays the image modification time given by the server below the image. At an elevation of 10100 ft, this is now the highest webcam in Washington state by a big margin (as far as I know, the previous highest was the Mission Ridge summit cam at 6800 ft), and also the highest in the entire Cascade Range, surpassing the two webcams at Mount Bachelor's Pine Marten Lodge at 7700 ft.

Body of boxing promoter's son found on Wash. peak http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012813942_apwaboxarummissingson3rdldwritethru.html "After a five-day search, the body of 49-year-old John Arum, a highly respected Seattle environmental attorney and outdoor enthusiast, was spotted Friday afternoon from a National Park Service helicopter at about the 7,700-foot level on the north face of 8,500-foot Storm King Mountain."

Here's a recent TR from TAY, which includes trail info in the replies: July 25, 2010, Mt. Hood, Snowdome/Sunshine Fail http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=17221.0

Liberty Ridge AVALANCHE: the Rainier climbing blog has aerial photos taken July 20 of a massive slab avalanche, stepping down to multiple bed surfaces, with crowns of several meters. Possibly triggered by rockfall from above? It runs right through where the nice ski track is in the photo above. Scary to think that this was ready to let loose at any time underneath all the recent climbers and skiers!

Hey guys, great work skiing a sick route. I skied Russell Glacier and lower Ptarmigan Ridge from its 10300 ft mini-summit yesterday, and saw a single fresh-looking ski track coming down Liberty Ridge. Secret sources stated that this was an IMG guide who skied it yesterday. This photo gives an interesting perspective on the ski route:

Great work, Dave. Nice to meet you in the parking lot. For what it's worth, the route didn't soften the next day either, despite the 14000 ft freezing level there was a gusty SE wind, so I had very similar conditions to you. I just wrote a TR on TAY: July 6-7, 2010, Mt Rainier, Emmons-Winthrop

Hey guys, you know there's a webcam looking straight at Coleman Headwall, right? This one, from the Abbotsford, BC, airport: http://visibility.pyr.ec.gc.ca/gvrd3.html If you zoom in on the photo (you have to zoom in, else this is pointless), it's easy to get some idea of snow coverage on the Headwall. Obviously it's too low-res to tell you when the CHW will go crevasse-wise, but it could tell you when it might go versus when it is totally out of condition like now. Best of all, there's an archive of half-hourly images extending back to 2002 at http://visibility.pyr.ec.gc.ca/gvrd3-archive.html, so you can compare this year to other years. Here are bunch of photos from July 17 the past several years (camera timestamps are UTC, hence most show early AM on July 18), there are so many more exposed rocks on the 2009 image, compared to years like 2006: 2009: Not much snow 2008: Even less snow than '09 2007: Fatter (photo from July 16, the 17th and afterwards was cloudy) 2006: Much fatter 2005: Looks fat, despite being the worst snowfall year on Baker since 1977; a snowy spring helped 2004: Old lower-res camera, so hard to tell (photo from July 22, after several hazy/cloudy days) 2003: Old lower-res camera, so hard to tell 2002: Old lower-res camera and fuzzy, so hard to tell (photo from July 16, the 17th was cloudy)

Great job, summiting in 60-70mph winds with skis is no small feat. And congrats on a real winter ascent in wintry conditions, not the summer-like winter ascents we were having a couple weeks ago. It was fun to track your climb all morning from below via the magic of a 560mm image-stabilized zoom lens (Canon SX10IS, a great camera). And then fantastic to join you for the ski out to the bridge! Since you don't have a group summit shot, here's one I took down on the Nisqually Glacier, and another at the bridge: All smiles on the Nisqually Glacier, with the Fuhrer Finger looming directly above the happy trio. The Nisqually Bridge, over 10500 vertical feet down from the summit. The new year is barely a month old, and 5 people have already skied from the summit to Nisqually Bridge, looks like we're headed for a record year! In case people here are interested, here's a link to our trip from a couple weeks ago, I posted a TR on TAY and Dave Brown wrote one on TGR. I was planning to cross-post a full TR here earlier, but never got around to converting the TAY version: Juneuary 17-18, 2009, Mt Rainier, Summit to Bridge via Fuhrer Finger http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=11970.0 http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148686

Congrats, Dave, on finally getting it done and making it back in one piece, too! You must be the first guy to fly all the way over here from Germany just to climb Chimney Rock!

Thanks for the report. That's the remains of the Geodetic Survey monument, which was erected on the summit in 1875 and collapsed in 1903. Lots of good info in the book Mt. Shasta: History, Legend & Lore by Michael Zanger, see p34 and pp48-51. I've only been to the summit with skis, so the tube had never melted out enough to see it any of those times. Maybe I'll go hike up the Clear Creek scree later this summer or fall. More info and old photos: The Geodetic Monument, 1875-1903 Random TR from Sept 2003 with photo of tube: http://home.comcast.net/~tbreit/shasta.htm

Well, looks like a lightning-sparked fire over the weekend has closed off the shortest south side access routes to Glacier Peak, via White River Trail to Lightning Creek and via North Fork Sauk (or Little Wenatchee) to White Pass: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/conditions/fire-update.shtml So the only way to get there from the south is North Fork Sauk to Red Pass to Glacier Peak Meadows (extra loooong and up-down), otherwise from the east via Buck Creek Pass to Triad Creek to an uncertain crossing of the Suiattle River.

How did this not make the Seattle news? There was a major rock and snow avalanche from the cliffs above the Avalanche Glacier on the west side of Mount Adams, at 7:43 AM PDT on August 1, 2008: http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/mount-adams-rock-and-snow-avalanche.html http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/08/major_avalanche_reshapes_mount.html