[TR] Mt Fernow - In Deep Snow Wearing a Dress 10/6

[lukeh]

Trip: Mt. Fernow - In Deep Snow Wearing a Dress

 

Date: 10/5-6/2013

 

Trip Report:

Click for a larger version. Linsey coming back down from Fernow's 9,249ft summit around 9am. Fresh snow was thigh deep in places. A frosted Mt. Maude (left), Seven Finger Jack (middle), and Mt. Rainier (middle distance) surround us to the south/east. I've now climbed 9 of the 10 tallest WA peaks, not necessarily on purpose.

 

Larger versions of these pictures are on Facebook. You can like my Facebook page if you want to see my photography in your FB feed sometimes.

 

This post will primarily be visual, but here are some things I'll remember most:

 

--The sound of the wind picking up at night, high above our camp at 7,700ft. I couldn't sleep and I heard the wind slowly build in the distance. There was something powerful/profound about listening to it come alive that night.

 

--We saw no other person past about the 4-5 mile mark lower down.

 

--Me constantly questioning avalanche danger, especially after another party doing Carne relayed--second hand--a sighting of a larger avalanche in the area recently. Ultimately we saw only pinwheels of all sizes and smaller debri. There was one mud/slash snow avy lower down, and one narrower proper slide under the summit block, but still pretty minor. We heard a massive roar at some point, but saw nothing to indicate is was an avalanche. Linsey suggested it might have been military aircraft, which we did spot the next morning. On our way back we had sweeping views of all suspect slopes in the immediate area, only pinwheel and sloughs could be seen. Ultimately it seems there wasn't enough of a snow base to cause any major slides.

 

--Being thankful to Linsey for not allowing us to ditch snow shoes early on. Post 4-5k, the snow would go up to my thigh in many places, and snow shoes became pretty crucial to our success.

 

 

--After some route finding difficulty, Linsey plowing down an aggressive descent path from the col below Seven Finger Jack to the West. I guess I had to follow.

 

--The sometimes verglass-y, snow covered final scramble being pretty sketch in places on the north side. After topping out, we opted for a short rap off to the east to mitigate sketchier down-climbing.

 

--The weather being mostly perfect the entire time.

 

--The golden larches filling themselves in on snowy ridges against the large scale, frosted rock features of these gorgeous Entiat mountains.

 

--A final tense questioning in the early morning, dark hours before going up the long 2,000 avy slope to the summit.

 

--Glacier Peak looming large, pink in the early morning alpenglow. I opted not to bring my telephoto lens to the summit. I now regretted it.

 

--Linsey wearing a dress and gaiters about 8 miles in around 7,700ft and walking around the larches in this surreal, completely isolated landscape.

 

Walking on shadows.

 

Last rays of light.

 

Walking on shadows II.

 

Cliffs and a girl in a dress.

 

A broken larch.

 

Listening to the wind. Time-lapse still of a time-lapse that will become part of my nearly complete Time-lapse project.

 

Ready to rappel from the summit.

 

Northeasterly from the summit.

 

Patterns and slough on the descent. Glacier Peak to the southwest.

 

Victory march back to camp.

 

Left - where we came from. Middle - our camp. Bottom - coming down from the steeper 2,000 slope from Fernow's summit block.

 

Blue and gold.

 

Close to 9k in total elevation gain, about 19-20 miles round trip. On part with Rainier less max altitude.

 

Trailhead to the summit.

 

Tricky descent from the col. Some say they take the glacier to the left, it looked pretty steep.

 

Elevation loss bottoms out to the right, camp is where you see the text.

 

South side of Fernow for the final 500-600 feet.The Entiat river's source is at the base of the south side. Glacier Peak looms large to the Northwest.

 

 

Copied from my blog.

 

Luke

 

Gear Notes:

30m rope for rap off summit. Not strictly necessary for stronger, braver down-climbers.

Alum cramps for me with a super light axe.

There was some technical, steeper rocky/icy stuff, but we were able to down-climb and avoid the harder ice sections.

White dress and as usual the heavy camera gear.

 

Approach Notes:

Snowshoes were pretty key to speed. Skis would've been nice I guess, but the snow was so variable at in many places had hidden rocks, not sure it would've been great.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2013 by lukeh

[Tom_Sjolseth]

We spoke before you left the parking lot. I was in the group heading to Carne Mtn. Nice meeting you.

 

Good thing you guys brought the shoes! We talked about the prospect of not bringing them after some deep poshtholing up to Carne (and beyond). Our conclusion was that it would suck without them.

 

Nice shots, and nice work getting up Fernow.

[sepultura]

Nice work and great photos.

Fernow is not trivial with new snow, or in a dress!

[Eric T]

Beautiful photos!! I love the glowing tent and her in the dress in the wild. Very cool.

[pdxtaco]

Nice TR. What device and software are you using for the tracks?

[OlegV]

I like a white dress in the mountians

[Otto]

Thank you for posting. Methinks "Last rays of light" is a very good photo.

[obwan]

I agree - " Last rays of light" is an incredible photo! And I like the gps track you overlaid on the route, very nice trip report.

Thanks!

[mthorman]

Really beautiful country up there! Congrats on making the summit and great photos.

[lukeh]

Thanks for the comments/reading all. pdxtaco I use Garmin Basecamp to generate a GPX file I just drag into Google Earth.