[TR] Mt. Rainier- Paradise to Camp Muir 1/30/2005

[Nick]

Climb: Mt. Rainier-Paradise to Camp Muir

 

Date of Climb: 1/30/2005

 

Trip Report:

Sunday Greg and I hiked up to camp Muir and set up my 4 season mountain tent right in the pass, near the hut. The snow was unconsolidated, on top of water ice, so there was no way to build a wind break. We dug out the entrance to the hut at Muir. A wind came up at dark, but we preferred the tent, and it is supposed to be a bombproof expedition type tent. 45 mph winds were predicted for Muir. I had the tent staked down with 8 snow stakes at the edges and vestibule corners. There is a lot of water ice, and shallow windslab drifts, around Muir, so I chopped slots in the ice and buried the stakes as dead men. What I did not do was use lengths of cord and extra dead men to guy out the tent from loops up high on the side of the tent (I didn't have any extra stakes or pickets, but could have used ice axes or ski poles). We thought, what the hell, lets see how the tent does. We cooked and brewed up inside the shelter. The wind blew like hell all night, drifting snow around the tent. It was hard to sleep and very noisy. Towards morning it got so windy, with very powerful gusts, that we decided to get dressed and pack up in case the tent couldn't take it. We took some time going over the descent route and putting lanyards on all of our navigation aids because it looked like we would be descending into headwinds gusting well over 60 mph and a whiteout. Greg had marked the route up with a tiny Geko GPS. This GPS has no eye for a lanyard, so we duct taped some cord to it. When it got light I got out of the tent and had to don crampons to cross the wind scoured ice between us and the shelter. As Greg sat in the door of the tent, putting on his crampons, two poles broke and the tent caved in, the poles ripping through the fly. Greg thinks that with the door open the lack of internal air pressure let the tent collapse past the point of no return. I don't know. The strongest gusts were well over 60 mph, maybe as high as 80 mph or more at the peak of the gust. The narrow pass at Muir creates a venturi effect, accelerating the winds. I felt that even my ice axe was in danger of blowing away. We were very methodical about hanging onto our gear, packing and lashing our packs inside the tent before going out, so we lost nothing. We got our packs over to the shelter (and I felt that the gusts could even have taken my relatively light pack away if I had let it go), then we went back and broke down the flattened tent, carrying the pieces back to the shelter to pack them into our packs. Without the shelter this winter camping experience would have been a lot more awkward! Next we had to get set to descend into what seemed to be a solid white out blizzard, but was in fact mostly yesterday's powder snow being blown up the mountain by the winds. There were patches of blue above from time to time and the visibility seemed to open up and get better every so often. We figured that the winds would decrease as we went down, but we expected to be descending in the kind of white out I experienced on another trip to Muir, with about 50 feet of visibility. Our plan was for Greg to go ahead using the GPS (he's still learning how it works) and for me to follow, checking that we were on the right compass bearing. This worked very well. The GPS took us right down our route of ascent, past the 8 waypoints Greg had marked on the way up as a breadcrumb trail. I was able to confirm that my compass bearing, and Greg's course, were both correct for the best winter descent route (about 168 degrees True from Muir to McClure Rock, staying right of the intermittent rocky ridge crest between the Muir Snowfield and the Paradise Glacier. In the Pass at Camp Muir the wind was from the south, but as soon as we got below the pass the wind was actually wrapping around the mountain from the west. The west wind tended to push us to the east, toward the Paradise Glacier. Without the GPS, or without carefully leap frogging compass bearings between two people, it is very easy to get pushed off course and end up descending on the Paradise Glacier, with danger of crevasse falls. As we descended visibility improved dramatically, though the wind didn't stop knocking us around until we got below Pan Point. The compass course from McClure Rock to Pan Point is about 212 degrees True and you make the turn at around 7200 feet elevation, but it is hard to know exactly where to turn because the contour lines meander in this area. The tendency is to turn too early and end up nearer to Pebble Creek than to Pan Point. The GPS was dead on. In the course of two days we had to change the batteries on the GPS twice. It was very hard to push the tiny buttons on the Geko GPS with big gloves on; Greg had to use the pick of his ax to push the buttons. By the time we got to McClure rock the clouds cleared and we could see the whole mountain. The route, which had a few inches of new powder on it on Sunday, was now very icy, with large areas of water ice. On Sunday we climbed to Muir in boots. On the descent we were glad to have crampons most of the way down. There are a fair number of wands on the route. If you are using a GPS to navigate in this kind of situation it is best to mark your waypoints along a consistent compass course as you ascend so that you will be able to use a compass to navigate on the way back, should you loose your GPS, or should it's batteries fail.

 

Gear Notes:

Needed crampons, ice axes, compass, GPS . . .could have used a few ice screws for tent stakes and guy lines for the tent.

 

Approach Notes:

The Muir snow field is very icy.

Edited February 5, 2005 by Nick

[skyclimb]

sounds educational. Be wary of GPS for a multitude of reasons-

* weight

*battery fatigue due to cold

* electronic malfunction

....

[chris_w]

Good TR. I've gotten hammered on Rainier in the winter before. A couple weeks ago we had to dig the tent out twice during night and took me about 45 minutes to find our snowcave the next morning with most of our gear in it.

 

Try using the Energizer Lithium batteries, they are fine to -40 degrees. Should improve battery life.

 

You could also only turn the GPS on when taking a waypoint. Saves a lot of battery life. I used 1 set of lithium batteries for 30 days on Denali and still had plenty juice left over.

[Norman_Clyde]

That west wind has pushed a few unfortunates onto the Paradise Glaciers, with tragic results. Muir Snowfield is probably the one place in Washington where I find myself wanting a GPS. I went up there today with just a compass, but today's weather being what it was, I decided that compass bearings would be adequate.

Only a few wands remain, all looking a little forlorn, none in a place to help with navigation. There is so little snow between the top of Pan Point and McClure Rock that I had to take the skis off several times. I'm not ultra-familiar with the path, but the spotty conditions make the topography a little more confusing. Many boot tracks exist but there is no obvious best path. I stopped about 400 yards short of the Muir huts when I could no longer skin up the water ice. Ironically, the hard alpine ice turned out to be better skiing than the variable wind crust. (At least the ice is predictable.) Pan Point probably has only one or two skiable days left, until (unless?) we get more snow.

[OlegV]

Great TR, Nick! I know it's a silly question, but did you take a close look at the upper mountain? I am wondering about snow conditions on Nisqually route. You said there is lots of ice, which is a plus for long range climbs.

[Couloir]

Great TR, Nick! I know it's a silly question, but did you take a close look at the upper mountain? I am wondering about snow conditions on Nisqually route. You said there is lots of ice, which is a plus for long range climbs.

 

Ditto, Nick. I was curious about the same thing.

[Nick]

I didn't look that closely at the Nisqually, but I am sure it had a lot in common with the Muir snowfield ridge. There is a lot of water ice on surfaces from the paradise parking lot right up to the vertical surfaces around Camp Muir, where the steep pinacles around the camp are coated with an inch or two of plastered on water ice. This ice must have built up durring spells of freezing rain and is probably found all over the place at least up to the 10,000 foot level. At the same time, the little snow we have had since the rains has been scoured off high points and dumped into hollows by the wind, so there ought to be a lot of bare glacier ice as well. I can't vouch for conditions higher up. There may be a more snow, and some bad wind slab, at higher elevations. There was some fresh snow on the Nisqually, but I am sure it was a thin layer. We should be getting more snow this weekend.

[Mike_Gauthier]

Great TR, Nick! I know it's a silly question, but did you take a close look at the upper mountain? I am wondering about snow conditions on Nisqually route. You said there is lots of ice, which is a plus for long range climbs.

 

Ditto, Nick. I was curious about the same thing.

 

I have been watching the Nisqually routes all winter. Went to climb the Nisqually Cleaver a few weeks, and found that snowpack on the upper mountain is also quite lite. Access to this route involved a lot of rock work (personall I'm into the Rainier rock). In normal years, there is nice ramp to gain the cleaver. The upper route looked good however.

It is possible to "thread" a line up the Nisqually Glacier, but you'll definitely be exposed to NUMEROUS crevasse and icefall issues.

I'm not saying the routes can't be done, but they are far more burly than normal. I'd give both routes a little more time to fill in...

[Nick]

NOTE, I edited my original post above because I had mislabeled my compass bearings "Magnetic" when they were in fact bearings based on TRUE north, not magnetic north. You should always check your own map and not just believe what some clown on the internet asserts!

[Norman_Clyde]

Jim Nelson's book has the bearings and GPS readings. I copied this page and keep it in a chest pocket. Now I just have to make sure it doesn't blow away if I ever have to take it out.

[Juan]

Hey Gator:

 

Would your observations apply to the Nisqually Icefall as well? I'm guessing they would. Two friends and I have been looking at it for this weekend, weather permitting.

 

Thanks very much,

 

John Sharp

Bellevue

[Mike_Gauthier]

For everyone interested in the Nisqually routes, see attached photo.