[TR] Mount Rainier - Emmons-Winthrop 7/21/2012

[crols]

Trip: Mount Rainier - Emmons-Winthrop

 

Date: 7/21/2012

 

Trip Report:

Not a route worth a whole lot of explaining, but here's the basics. Left the car around 2pm Friday and hiked 3.1 miles to glacier basin, then endured a brutally slushy skin up the Inter and Emmons Glaciers to Camp Schurman by about 8:30pm.

 

 

We had planned to start around 2 the following morning, but we got a welcome tip from the ranger at Camp Schurman, who said said that given our skiing objective would be more enjoyable with a later summit time of 1 or 2pm, allowing us to sleep in until 5am--alpine luxury and a great sunrise!

 

 

We skinned up the corridor to the begging of the traverse, where we roped up for 4 or 5 very secure crevasse crossings in 3 and a half hours.

 

 

 

We decided to keep the skis on our packs after the traverse as we thought it would be faster than trying to skin the steeper and sometimes icy upper Winthrop Glacier--and it was, allowing us to re-catch and then pass some larger climbing teams that had passed us in the corridor.

 

 

 

 

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4 hours later we made it onto the very windy crater rim where we left behind our skis for a short summit walk on gravel, probably around 50 feet of elevation or so.

 

 

 

After the summit got old, which was not very long with that wind, we headed back to our skis and tried to chug some gatorade and try to gather our wits for the long awaited descent.

 

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Thanks to the rangers tip we slashed turns in blower corn for about 500 feet off the summit ridge--fuck yes--and then a inconsistent pathcwork of corn and frozen-groomer like skiing back down to the top of the traverse where the snow became the typical melting monster mash, taking about 20 minutes total. Fun stuff! Then we made our way through the traverse again in about a half hour, and skied the corridor back to Camp Schurman in another 5-10 minutes. After striking camp we threw the skis back on the pack to get off route on some class 4 cascade choss battling, before shredding the mushy Inter Glacier back to Glacier Basin and hiking out.

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Crevasse Gear and Skis.

 

Approach Notes:

Skinning from glacier basin to camp Schurman was probably the hardest part of the trip just because we kept sliding around in the slush. Approaches shoes are a great idea if your dealing with ski boots.

[mhux]

Is a 5am start even considered alpine?

Strong work, that's obviously the best way down...props!!

[crols]

In this case we'll count it because we topped out, but it definitely doesn't count on those late start palmer consolations haha. thanks though man!