Rainier Ski

[letsroll]

Going up to Rainier for the first time. Looking at doing the Ingraham-Disappointment route. Was wondering what the ski decent is like off the summit? Would it even be worth it to pack the skis to the summit? Plan on skinning to Camp Muir no matter what.

[pete_a]

It is worth it to pack skis to the summit if skiing off the summit is something you want to do, but more often than not the skiing conditions you'd find are going to be not a heck of a lot of fun.

 

if you monitor the weather very closely, you maybe able to time it so you may find either good wind-effected powder or corn (depending on the time of year you plan to go) most of the time you'll find hard snow, sastrugai, and assorted other nastiness at least above 13000ft.

 

I've skied the Ingraham Direct route before, April'04 though we angled more towards the Gib.Rock side of the Ingraham instead of towards the DC side. At the time it was very well closed up and I don't think we had more than two obvious snow bridges that we had to ski across. We did opt to de-ski and re-crampon for a short steep secion above a crevasse near the top of Gib.Rock....but it could've easily been skied by more capable folk. The upper 1000ft of skiing from the top at the time involved side slips and careful jump turns on very low-angle but bulletproof snow.

 

I think most people would consider the Emmons to be the more ski-worthy option vs. the Ingraham.

[Mike_Gauthier]

Hum... as it stands now, skiing the ID would be rather tough. Despite the heavy snowfall this year, it's still broken up. See: www.mountrainierclimbing.blogspot.com for some details.

 

The I.D., the Emmons/Winthrop, the Tahoma Glacier and the Kautz Glacier are the ideal routes to ski and/or board. Mind you, this is EXPERTS only terrain.

[korup]

Excellent site-

 

http://www.skimountaineer.com/CascadeSki/CascadeSki.php?name=Rainier