Fuhrer Finger/Kautz Beta

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Anyone been up the FF recently? How much snow is there on the FF and how is rockfall? How much exposed ice on the Kautz (2nd step)?

[Jim]

Mike's Rainer blogspot has a recent route report - said 2nd technical pitch mostly ice. I'll be up on the route this coming weekend and if the weather cooperates I'll write up a TR.

 

The finger had recent ski tracks - I was skiing Muir on past Thursday.

[jshamster]

I realize it's been a couple of weeks, but I think I answered your Kautz question here:

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/887054/Kautz_conditions_6_7_09#Post887054

 

My brother-in-law is a climbing ranger up there, so tomorrow evening I could probably have even more current beta for ya.

 

When we were up there the FF looked good, and was getting skied pretty much every day.

As I said in my linked post, the Fan approach to the Kautz is highly not recommended. Unless of course you like playing dodge ball with Rainier choss.

 

Cheers.

Jimbo

[TMO]

I did FF a few weeks ago... as mentioned above, the fan is nasty. We went uphill of the fan on the Nisqually and took the next gully to the ridge, there should be a path beat in by now. We experienced no rock fall on the way up the finger, and very minor stuff on the way down it. The tricky part was navigating the Nisqually between 11,400' and 13,000' as we traversed right, onto the Nisqually as opposed to going to the top of Wapowety Cleaver. Hope that helps.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Thanks, guys. I called the climbing information center at Paradise and apparently a moat/crack has developed at the base of the finger and there is a lot of rockfall in there.

 

The Kautz has a lot of exposed ice for this time as year, including some bulges with a 60 degree aspect.

 

 

[Jim]

Katuz is in good shape still. Folks went up the Finger on Saturday but I wouldn't try that route now. Dirty and looked like good amounts of rockfall.