chilly Posted June 17, 2003 Posted June 17, 2003 Day trip up Little "T" (standard route), on 6/16/03. The three of us left the vehicle at 0430 and headed up. Bypassed Summerland, went to the far climbers right of Meany Crest and went up the Fryingpan Glacier, cut through the Whitman Crest and onto the Whitman Glacier. On the first traverse across the Whitman watch for continous rockfall by a small double waterfall on the right. We traveled around a couple crevasses and headed straight up the glacier until we top out at the rocks. We then unroped up a small steep snowfield and finally made the summit scramble. No one seen or heard all day, (other than a large group of climbers across the way at Cathederal Gap), had the place to ourselves. Summited at 1230 and on the way out the snow was great for plunge stepping. Car to car was 14 hours......long but great day in the mountains. Ski's or snowboard out would be much faster. Glacier conditions were good, a few crevasses opening but easily navigated. Quote
Jens Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 Little T rocks. Its got some of my favorite ski mountainerring and scenery around. It's seems to be a mystery why it goes begging for climbers and skiiers? Especially since it is the sixth volcano and one of Washington's highest mountains. Not a sattelite of Rainier. Quote
Alex Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 Is Little Tahoma really its own volcanic cone? I thought it was just a remnant of ol' Rain-dog. Quote
CascadeClimber Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 I always thought it was mine tailings. I've read that it is a separate and much older formation, though I can't cite the reference. -L Quote
klenke Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 Beckey calls Little Tahoma a "high, crumbling satellite of Rainier [standing] as an erosional remnant from the formerly larger Rainier volcano." I'm inclined to say it was not a satellite vent of the Mt. Rainier volcano mass, but the remaining part of a much larger ridge before glacial action eroded away its flanks. That's just conjecture on my part. I'm not a vulcanologist. Quote
JoshK Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 It's too bad rainer had to go and blow itself to shit and all. Can you imagine in it in it's old glorious 19,000+ foot form!? Quote
ivan Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 5000 more vertical feet of continous rmi wands? shit, they might have to deforest the bamboo forests of thailand to do the trick... Quote
JoshK Posted June 18, 2003 Posted June 18, 2003 Something tells me another 5k of vert might cut down on the touron contingent on mount rainer quite a bit. Quote
Fairweather Posted June 19, 2003 Posted June 19, 2003 JoshK said: It's too bad rainer had to go and blow itself to shit and all. Can you imagine in it in it's old glorious 19,000+ foot form!? Rainier was never 19k. It was 16,000 feet high when Little T was part of its original surface perhaps as recently as 6000 years ago. If you look at Rainier from the west, draw an imaginary line up Success Cleaver from the right, and up Ptarmigan Ridge/Mowich Face from the left. The apex of these lines lies over 1500 feet above the younger summit cone. Point Success and Liberty Cap are merely the uneroded remnants of the huge crater that was later partially filled by today's summit structure. note: I am not a geologist, but I occasionally read the shit that they write. Quote
j_b Posted June 19, 2003 Posted June 19, 2003 Jens said: Little T rocks. Its got some of my favorite ski mountainerring and scenery around. It's seems to be a mystery why it goes begging for climbers and skiiers? Especially since it is the sixth volcano and one of Washington's highest mountains. Not a sattelite of Rainier. no offense Jens but the large fraction of climbers who have experienced bad rockfall on Little T could be one major reason for its relative unpopularity (its being in the shadow of the big one is probably the main reason). i almost got killed on that thing and have heard a number of similar stories. Quote
Fairweather Posted June 19, 2003 Posted June 19, 2003 The second time I climbed Little T we camped at Summerland. During the night I dreamed that the clown on Stephen King's movie "It" was in the cliffs above the Whitman Glacier trying to roll rocks down on me. Really freaked me out. We climbed it anyway w/o incident. Quote
cluck Posted June 24, 2003 Posted June 24, 2003 Camped on Meany Crest Sat. night and climbed Little T Sunday 6/22 by the same route as Chilly. Good advise from Chilly on rock fall. Even knowing this hill is a loose choss pile, good idea on warm sunny days (our weather was quite different that the epic weather Rainier climbers had 24 hours earlier) to get an alpine start or climb earlier in the season when more of the choss is nailed down. We saw a couple of missles and evidence of many more. Fryingpan and Whitman on standard route in good shape. The summit scrable itself was super easy. Nice exposure looking North down into the Emmons. Props to those that do this car to car in a day. Was pretty tuckered out only doing 1/2 up and 7000'+ down in a day. Without the rock rockets, a really nice climb with great views of the East side of Rainier. Quote
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