Jump to content

[TR] Mount Rainier - Kautz Glacier-then DC (sigh) 8/28/2010


sdizzle25

Recommended Posts

Trip: Mount Rainier - Kautz Glacier-then DC (sigh)

 

Date: 8/28/2010

 

Trip Report:

Planned to do ascent of Kautz Glacier route. Mixture of rookieness on the mountain and bad advice by the climbing ranger put us heading up the muir snowfields with hopes of traversing the Nisqually onto the Turtle. Bad idea. Nisqually looks like a pile of office building size ice legos (apparently crevasses open late season?) tossed down the mountain + white out put us on the Dissapointment CLeaver Route, which I will doubtfully do again.

Note: If you do do the DC (and i dont recommend it), stay at Ingraham Flats. It is about 20 minutes and at worse 2 tiny crevasses away from Muir, and you have the advantage of not being subject to the giant pile of crap (literal and figurative)that is camp muir.

Regardless, 1st time on Rainier and an awesome hill. weather was beautiful with exception of the white out and snow storm on the muir (both up and down)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 8
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Id say as long as we are equipped with the knowledge to start late season at the van tramp glacier instead of paradise we should be fine. had tools and plenty of screws, nisqually was looking really quite broken up. if im just being a wuss let me know, but the idea of spending the entire afternoon trying to cross that thing while being seranaded with consitent rock and ice fall just seemed like a little too much objective hazard to make it worth it

Edited by sdizzle25
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some friends and I did the Kautz Glacier about three days before that (August 25th/26th). We took the Moraine trail off of Dead Horse trail, but stayed a little high and crossed the Nisqually right through the crevassed area. It wasn't actually too bad, but a better place to cross would definitely have been down lower, where it's icier and dirtier and more firm. Didn't identify many objective hazards until we went up "the fan" on the other side, and even then, very minimal. Overall, a really fun route.

Didn't see another soul or party the entire time, including on the summit (11:00 AM). Well, we could see across to Camp Muir, which just made us more happy about the route we had chosen. For pictures, you can hit up http://gallery.me.com/jlawrence10 and see some pics from our trip. Keep thinking I'm gonna write up a trip report, but I guess I'm not gonna...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pretty sure we tried crossing way higher up, pretty much at the same elevation as the top of the muir snowfield. Your way would have still been doable. i would thank you for the pictures, but they really just rub in the fact we could have had wayy more fun on the kautz

so yeah, screwed the pooch for sure. lesson learned

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...