[TR] Mt Rainier - Kautz Glacier 7/16/2008

[benb]

Trip: Mt Rainier - Kautz Glacier

 

Date: 7/16/2008

 

Trip Report:

Brian and I left Paradise about 7:00pm on Monday the 13th. We hit the trail towards glacier vista and found a bivy site on a lateral moraine of the lower Nisqually near Pebble Creek. We crossed the Nisqually and the lower Wilson uneventfully to gain the turtle snowfield. The snow was soft, no crampons needed. The slog up the Turtle was hot. With plenty of water in hand, my pack would have been much lighter if I had known there was so much water available. (plenty of H2O all the way to Camp Hazard)

 

Above the Turtle, we veered west and found a fixed line set up for a shot rappel to gain the Kautz. Determined to check out Camp Hazard, we skirted on the west side of Wapowety Cleaver keeping a close eye and ear on the seracs of the Kautz ice cliff. They were making some noise and we knew we were not in the best spot. Some chossy 4th class scrambling led us up to Hazard. I was surprised to see so little in the way of wind-breaks but in hindsight, I understand why. We found a sweet spot and built a nice break with all the available rocks. Just as our hard work was about to be enjoyed with some food and a nap, a big old serac was telling us it was about to go. I pulled out my camera, flipped it to video and hit record just as the it let go. HOLEY SHIT! That was one of the most impressive things I have had the privilege to witness. Brian yelled “ROCK” J and we stood in awe and watched. Once the adrenaline was out of our systems, we took a good close look at the mother-load of ice hanging over us and we packed up and headed down.

We found a great bunker about 50 meters from the rappel and settled in for one of the best bivy night sleeps I have had.

 

With a 2:00am start, we were crossing the ice chunder under the light of a very impressive moon. A couple of hundred meters up the kautz, we lost the ski poles for our second tools. Travel was fairly quick and negotiating the crevasses was doable. The snow came to an end and I found myself on a 60ft pitch of steep glacier ice. You know the kind, you hit it with your axe and hear the sketchy sound of compressed ice pop of into dinner plates to rain down on your partner. I got a screw in near the top of the nasty pitch while Brian and I simul climbed until I could get a decent anchor in to belay him up. (thinking back on it, I would have like a couple more screws in that pitch)

 

Negotiating the glacier above the Ice Chute was reasonable. I was very happy the freezing level was low. There were a couple of time our axes would plunge to the head and reveal the nasty darkness below. We climbed west of the route and reached point success at 8:00am. Another hour of easy travel led us to Columbia Crest for a couple of photos and memories of a great accent.

 

We followed the great wand high-way down to Muir sweating balls and in culture shock with the crowds. There were some guides kicking it at their hut blasting “Two Joints” by Sublime on the radio. Just what I would want to hear coming from the guys I have paid top dollar to drag me up the “BIG DOG”. But that is all I will say about that.

 

It was a great climb! I have some pics to post if someone would be kind enough to help out. I did get the Ice Avalanche posted on you tube “Kautz Ice Cliff” check it out.

 

Cheers,

 

Ben

 

[klenke]

(pretty cool, accept for the wind noise).

[Hendershot]

Thanks Ben!

 

I'll return the favor & post my TR by Monday.

[crazy_t]

sick video, thanks

[Jopa]

I like how the one guy yells "rock!"

[ScaredSilly]

This is why Camp Hazard is named well Camp Hazard. No one smart bivies there. The spots below near the rappel are good spots - though they are now dry. However, water can be found to the west. When I get a chance I will post a report on our trip. But a few morsels, conditions on the Nisqually are excellent, as are conditions walking up to the Turtle. Getting on to Kautz is not a problem the lower ice tongue is ice but is very stair stepped, cracks are open but not a problem. The intermediate snow field has lots sun cups. The upper ice step (aka what people misname the ice chute - there is no chutte) is hard glacier ice for 70 feet. It is 45 degrees max and there is no need for a second tool. (Unless you like to carry short tools for hardly anything). The trick is to use the remnants of the sun cups for one hand and foot. The upper snow field is sun cupped not the most fun. A few cracks here and there. Instead of crossing the top of the cleaver we cut left and headed up towards Point Success. An axe and ski pole are the way to go. We descended the DC - what a mess that route is (condition wise). Yuck. The Kautz is a gem.

 

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

This is why Camp Hazard is named well Camp Hazard. No one smart bivies there. The spots below near the rappel are good spots - though they are now dry. However, water can be found to the west. When I get a chance I will post a report on our trip. But a few morsels, conditions on the Nisqually are excellent, as are conditions walking up to the Turtle. Getting on to Kautz is not a problem the lower ice tongue is ice but is very stair stepped, cracks are open but not a problem. The intermediate snow field has lots sun cups. The upper ice step (aka what people misname the ice chute - there is no chutte) is hard glacier ice for 70 feet. It is 45 degrees max and there is no need for a second tool. (Unless you like to carry short tools for hardly anything). The trick is to use the remnants of the sun cups for one hand and foot. The upper snow field is sun cupped not the most fun. A few cracks here and there. Instead of crossing the top of the cleaver we cut left and headed up towards Point Success. An axe and ski pole are the way to go. We descended the DC - what a mess that route is (condition wise). Yuck. The Kautz is a gem.

 

 

 

It's named after a person.

 

 

[ivan]

 

 

It's named after a person.

 

ever notice how conservatives are such literalists?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

 

It's named after a person.

 

ever notice how conservatives are such literalists?

 

stfu

[Hendershot]

I owe you guys a TR for my 19-20th foray.

 

Spent the night on the side of the road Friday night to get a good start Sat from Paradise. Zero traffic on the approach. Muir was at capacity. Camped at 10,400 below Hazard, on the Wapowtey Cleaver, well out of the way of the garbage dump. The weather was so nice, we enjoyed an open bivy with views of Adams & Helens. Here is the Kautz in all her glory.

Sunday morn, we got moving at 2:30 am, much later than we should have in hind sight. Rapped the short section, crossed the garbage chute and began simul-climbing.

Reached the steeper section, where we pitched out one (4 screws & running belay on top). Around 12,000 ft, it was noticably more crevassed. There were lots of penitentes (spell check anyone?) which made it hard to spot the gappers until you were right next to them.

At 7:30 am / 13,400 ft, our rate slowed down significantly. Considering the time it would take to tag the summit, break, and head down to the crevassed area, we began to be worried the snow bridges we crossed wouldn't be as solid on the way back. We contented ourselves with reaching the end of the "technical difficulties" and descended. In hindsight, we could have started earlier, done a carry over to descend the DC route, or just spend more time at Lynnwood Crossfit to do it in better time.

Punched a leg through a snow bridge on the way down, but used my third leg to arrest. Rappeled off an ice block, backed by a V-thread. Made it down to Paradise lot to meet our ride at 5:30 pm, only 30 min late.

[ScaredSilly]

It's named after a person.

 

Sorry I should of added a smiley, that was a joke ... but also serious as people do stupid shit. Like the party who walked up the debris field late in the afternoon a few days latter.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

It's named after a person.

 

Sorry I should of added a smiley, that was a joke ... but also serious as people do stupid shit. Like the party who walked up the debris field late in the afternoon a few days latter.

 

I hear you. I don't know how you could stop there to camp, look up, and not immediately move elsewhere. :-)

 

 

[ScaredSilly]

BTW - a question to ponder and this is not to question people's abilities but why do so many feel the need to take two tools on the Kautz? The ice step is not that steep or so difficult to really require it. I think it is over kill and then you end up carrying the damn things for rest of the route. My partner and I did it with a single 60cm axe along with a ski pole. We tucked the pole for the ice step and just used our hand for balance. Yeah we are a couple of old farts that have been around the hill a few times so we feel comfortable on most terrain but it would seem to me folks could use some practice climbing with single tool. It will certainly make you more competent and confident. Then when you get to sections like this you can just blow through them rather than bumble around.

[natazoo]

I generally consider myself a minimalist poster, but since I can't sleep I will add my $.02 to this discussion. I had the priviledge of climbing the Kautz route with Ben a couple of weeks ago. We carried second tools for these reasons:

 

A) Never climbed on that side of the mountain before and didn't know what obstacles we would encounter.

B) The Cascade Alpine Guide describes an ice chute and our topo map clearly labels an ice chute on the route.

 

ScaredSilly made it up with one axe and I'm sure others do also. Good job. I was glad to have a second tool as I was pounding into dinner-plating blue ice. The moon had set, and I've only seen it once, but there appeared to be sun cup jugs and other features on a line about 15+ feet to our right. We didn't go for that line.

 

As for Camp Hazard...wtf? I know you need to use your own judgement on a mountain, but when researching the climb, it seems like a viable camp. Beckey says its, "the usual camp for climbers using this route." The Falcon Guide by Jeff Smoot describes it as named after Joseph Hazard, "and not because it is in a precarious position."

 

As we kept climbing closer to the camp, I kept thinking, is it really that close to the ice cliff. While sitting at Camp Hazard, I continued trying to calculate the probability of getting crushed. If ice were to fall directly above the camp, it looks like it would glance off the ridge and fall down one of several gulleys. In the end we decided if a big enough chunck gave way, it could be game over. We obviously moved to a lower camp. There are several established bivy sites there. People must camp up there???

 

I've enjoyed reading more reports on Mike Gauthier's climbing blog. Looks like the route is close to done at this point. Look forward to another route next year.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

BTW - a question to ponder and this is not to question people's abilities but why do so many feel the need to take two tools on the Kautz? The ice step is not that steep or so difficult to really require it. I think it is over kill and then you end up carrying the damn things for rest of the route. My partner and I did it with a single 60cm axe along with a ski pole. We tucked the pole for the ice step and just used our hand for balance. Yeah we are a couple of old farts that have been around the hill a few times so we feel comfortable on most terrain but it would seem to me folks could use some practice climbing with single tool. It will certainly make you more competent and confident. Then when you get to sections like this you can just blow through them rather than bumble around.

 

I've read TRs from past years where the ice can get as steep as 60 degrees, and I'd probably want a 2nd tool for that. I've also seen a lot of TR's where folks just walked up and through suncups and penitentes. YMMV - from week to week and year to year. I'd rather take a tool just in case rather than run into terrain I was uncomfortable on with just an axe.

 

[ScaredSilly]

Thanks for the thoughts, appreciate hearing your thinking.

 

The funny part about the TRs from the past week over on Gator's blog is that several said they had up to 60 degree ice. It was at best 45 degree ice. Given that I have to doubt the accuracy of many of the past TRs. You could certainly find 60 degree ice if you wanted but that is another matter.

 

I am sure that at times two tools would be useful but when multiple people carry multiple tools for 100 feet out of 3000 feet of climbing plus the fact that they are too short for the most of the route it seems to be really inefficient.

 

My partner and I discussed that if the ice was too steep for a single axe we would just use the others axe, pitch it out, and then send both tools back down for the other to use.

 

I am reading the same TRs and guide books (albeit not all) but interpret some thing different. I guess I think about folks like Joe Hazard and what they were doing when guiding folks. These guys were honed and though had heavy gear they could move pretty fast. I just do not see them guiding folks through super steep terrain even for short distances. I have no doubt that they would have chopped a bunch of steps though had they found the current conditions.

 

Speaking of ole Hazard. They camped up at the top and then walked down and around. None of this rappelling monkey business with clients. Back then the camp was probably safer, even friends in the 70s/80s camped up there. Today, I sure as hell would not given the overall warming conditions and I know they would not.

 

 

 

 

[scottk]

BTW - a question to ponder and this is not to question people's abilities but why do so many feel the need to take two tools on the Kautz? The ice step is not that steep or so difficult to really require it. I think it is over kill and then you end up carrying the damn things for rest of the route. My partner and I did it with a single 60cm axe along with a ski pole. We tucked the pole for the ice step and just used our hand for balance. Yeah we are a couple of old farts that have been around the hill a few times so we feel comfortable on most terrain but it would seem to me folks could use some practice climbing with single tool. It will certainly make you more competent and confident. Then when you get to sections like this you can just blow through them rather than bumble around.

When we climbed it 2 years ago it was brittle dinner-plating ice until the sun hit it and then it was beautiful plastic ice. I think people estimate the slope from 45 to 60 degrees because there front side of the ice penatardes are 60 degrees and the back sides are 20 degrees. I don't think the average is much more than 45 degrees but there are short sections (~10 feet long) on 60 degree slopes. No matter what the slope, when you can't get more than 1/4 inch of penetration on brittle dinner-plating ice, it doesn't feel secure. Also, for people that are used to climbing snow, ice can be intimidating. So I was glad to lead with 2 ice tools. It would have been a lot more fun if the ice was plastic.

[Hendershot]

Ok, so I took my own advice and went for the Kautz glacier route again, this time to carry over to descend the DC. Going without a tent or bivy and discriminating on every piece of clothing and gear, I went from a 50 liter pack to a 30L. Not encouraged by Friday night's rain & Saturday's overcast, my climbing partner brought his bivy. Starting Sat morning we left Paradise and camped at the same location on the Wapatowey Cleaver. We were above the fog/clouds so precipitation wasn't a problem. We hit the snooze and got moving at 2am. We saw a party camped below at the turtle, but didn't see them later that night/day on the route.

 

We each had a tool and a piolet. I led the ice pitch and broke it into two pitches to lower the tools to John. The tools got stuck lowering and it became a time consumer to rap down to free them, use a ropeman to get back up to belay. On the second half of the pitch, I used just my ax & one tool to avoid another lowering ordeal. The crevasses around 11-12k ft were not as frequent as I remembered, but some seriously large gapers. We managed to find a boot path that led us to the top of the Kautz. I was running out of gas on the last bit to Columbia crest. Zip fizz to the rescue! Amazing what 41,000% of your daily value of Vitamin B12 does for you. We reached to summit at 10:50 am. Headed down to Muir at 11:30 am.

 

Before descending the DC, another climber in a bicycle helmet asked me to help him with the straps for his crampons. I said, "Well for starters, they are on backwards". He said, "I got up here with them this way just fine and I'm not going to change the secure one". I walked away since he didn't really want my advice while my perplexed partner tried to help him and figure out how you mess up something as easy as putting on crampons. Before we left, they asked us what time it was. I asked myself how you could climb Rainer without a watch. It sure helps to know your rate of ascent and certain details like how much daylight you have left, but whatever. Soapbox aside, we arrived at Camp Muir at 2:00, left at 2:30, back to Paradise at 4:00 pm.

 

Didn't recharge my camera, so no pics this TR.

[Hendershot]

P.S. sorry to piggy back on another TR, twice.

[sobo]

Man, oh man, the opinions on this thread are so thick you can chew on them. I’ve done it about a dozen times or so over the past 20 years, so while I’m no “ex-spurt” I do think I’ll throw in my $0.02...

 

So, in my treasured humble opinion:

 

1) I’ve camped beneath the ice cliff about half the times I’ve done the route. It's just a matter of knowing the weather history, recent ice fall activity, and assessing the situation when you get there to decide if it's the place to camp or not. To say, "No one smart bivies there" is just a dumb thing to say. Like natazoo implies, Beckey and Smoot indicate that it is not a sure-fire way to die, and it has been an established camp for generations. Just use your fucking judgment before you commit to crashing there.

 

2) And WTF is this statement supposed to mean? "The upper ice step (aka what people misname the ice chute - there is no chutte." (sic) Well, it sure the fuck looked like a chute to me the many times I went through it. Which leads me to...

 

3) Never saw, heard of, or used the fixed line to rappel down into the "chute". Oh, sorry, the ice step. Always just walked around and down, except once I did climb up the rock wall to Hazard to avoid ascending the chute. Oh, sorry again, the ice step.

 

4) Never brought a ski pole on the route, nor found the need to do so.

 

5) Never brought a second tool on the route, nor found the need to do so.

 

6) How does this "sending the tools down" work if you’ve put in any pro along the way? If you haven't put anything in, then what is the point of pitching it out a rope length if you happen to skitter off? You looking to drag both of you down the hill or what? And if you're just lowering the tools down on a line, why bring the extra weight (the rope) if you're just de facto soloing anyway?

 

BTW, nice job on the route, benb and natazoo.

 

[Hendershot]

6) How does this "sending the tools down" work if you’ve put in any pro along the way? If you haven't put anything in, then what is the point of pitching it out a rope length if you happen to skitter off? You looking to drag both of you down the hill or what? And if you're just lowering the tools down on a line, why bring the extra weight (the rope) if you're just de facto soloing anyway?

 

Simple. I went up 30 meters (placing screws). Stopped at the midway point and set up a belay, anchored in. Untied my end and lowered the tools. Then pulled up the slack, tied in again and had the second clean the route.

[sobo]

OK, so you're only pitching it out for a half rope length, and you're setting pro.

That was not clear in your original description. Thanks.

[mattp]

The funny part about the TRs from the past week over on Gator's blog is that several said they had up to 60 degree ice. It was at best 45 degree ice.

 

It is common for people to overestimate the steepness of snow and ice. Standing on an actual 45 degree slope feels damn steep and unless you've done a lot of high angle ice climbing it is difficult to tell yourself it isn't much steeper than that. An old standard formula is to take the angle that you think it is, cut it in half, and add ten degrees.

[sobo]

Yes, that old formula works very well. I use it meself to verify whenever anyone tells me how steep shit is.

 

Another variant:

1) Hold your arm out straight in front of you with your elbow locked.

2) Clench your fist, and hold the fist as if you were going to punch something (vertical orientation).

3) At arms length, the angle formed between the bottom of your fist, to your eye, to the top of your fist is approximately 10 degrees of arc.

4) "Stack" your fists (up or down, as the case may be), beginning from the horizontal, to approximate the angle of whatever it is your want to know the steepness thereof.

 

This method works well for anyone with an Ape Index of 0.95 < AI < 1.05

Ape Index is the measurement of your armspan (fingertip to fingertip) divided by your height.

Anything greater than 1.0 makes you a knuckledragger (mine is AI = 1.03).

Leonardo Da Vinci believed that this guy has an AI of unity.

 

 

Da Vinci wrote, "...The navel is naturally placed in the centre of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the centre, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square."

 

Ergo, Ape Index = 1.0

QED.

Class dismissed.

[pc313]

BAD TO THE BONE!!!! NICE PIC.