[TR] Mt. Rainier - Summit Success - Emmons Route 6/20/2015

[montynet]

Trip: Mt. Rainier - Summit Success - Emmons Route

 

Date: 6/20/2015

 

Trip Report:

Our team of 4 attempted to climb Mt. Rainier via the Emmons glacier starting on 6/20/15 and returning home on 6/21/15. We left the Seattle area around 5 AM and got to the White River Ranger station around 6:50 AM. The station is supposed to open at 7:30 AM but the Ranger that was there open the door for us around 7:10 AM. We got our climbing permits, $45 per person good for one calendar year. We started hiking at 7:28 AM from the White River Campground on the well maintained and wild flower infested Glacier Basin trail which is 3.1 miles to the basin. At the basin, we kept on hiking on the climber's trail leading to the start of the Inter Glacier, which appears like a snowfield but as we saw it is an actual glacier because it has man eater crevasses near the top of the glacier so watch out for those. We reached the point of the Inter glacier and we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle because we had missed the easy way to get down to the Emmons glacier. The easy way to get to the Emmons glacier is on the left side closest to Mount Ruth. Once we were at the Emmons glacier with vast visible crevasses we decided to rope up. We reached our base camp at Emmons Flats at 2:28 PM along the way we passed Camp Schurman which has a working toilet and blue bag deposits and is only 300 feet lower than Emmons Flats. We prepared our snow campsites which took us around two hours to do. We boiled snow for cooking and water and we finally went to bed around 6 PM. We woke up at 12 AM on 6/21 for our summit bid. We ate breakfast, gear up, and left camp around 1:20 AM. From Emmons Flats the route that other climbers have done is visible most of the time except when fresh powder has erased it. There are several crevasses along the route, none have a ladder. There are two snow bridges that don't appear to be super solid and might not have more than 2 weeks left before they cave. There is also one section along the route that involves a traverse in a small climber path that on your right side if you were to fall is a giant crevasse and on your left side there is chunk of ice that would be wise to use your ice axe for a self belay. As we continued our climb, the parties on the route started to dwindle in numbers, one party of 3 turned back around 11,000 ft. Once we were at the Emmons bergschrund our lead climber found a path that leads to a snow bridge that allows you to cross that giant bergschrund. We reached the summit of Rainier around 7:00 AM. Our descend took us around 3.5 hours. At base camp we took a 2 hour break and we finally reached our vehicle around 5:40 PM.

 

For a gpx file, if interested, get in contact with Adventure Explorer on facebook. Adventure Explorers WA

 

Flowers along the Glacier Basin trail:

Little Tahoma and big brother:

Inter glacier climb:

Emmons glacier, somehow we had to get down there:

Camp Schurman:

Emmons Flats (false advertisement)

Sunrise along the route:

Adventure Explorers was here:

 

 

Gear Notes:

Standard glacier travel equipment.

 

Approach Notes:

Maintained trail, road paved all the way to parking lot at White River campground. Climbing permits available at White River Ranger Station.

[jared_j]

Were y'all the ones with the wands with the red tape? I think we bumped into you on your way down as we were coming up. Nice work finding that little bridge over the bergschrund, I was surprised at how faint / faded previous footprints were up there.

[montynet]

Yes, that was us with the red wands. Glad it help others.

[niroyb]

We had some beta from the rope teams that summited Saturday. We ended up going climbers left around the final bershrung.

We found that flagging the objective hazards (Snow bridges, crevasses) greatly helped us on the descent.