[TR] Rainier - Ingraham Direct - Splitboard Descent 4/3/2016

[lukeh]

Muir Saturday morning.

 

We watched the sunrise from Rainier’s crater rim on Sat morning, then pushed off on splitboards back down the Ingraham Direct route. It was a little too windy for my taste above 12k ft, but I knew we wouldn’t be up there long.

 

Here are the highlights:

• I recently returned from a 2-week trip to West/NW Africa and hadn’t exercised while there - at all. A quick 60-pound pack trip up Mailbox on Tue night and a Wed night weight training session my legs left my quads pretty sore. That’s usually a bad sign before a Rainier attempt.
  
• Fri morning at 7am we head off to Paradise, quads still sore.
  
• Weather/condition forecasts had been changing a bit during the week. A Fri morning check predicted 25mph winds Fri night changing to 35mph winds Sat AM up top, coming from NW then W. Seemed manageable, coming up the eastside would provide some buffer. Clouds were supposed to move in Sat. AM for a bit then dissipate, I hoped they'd be low.
  
• Our 4th partner wasn’t into the snowboard/ski descent thing, not even from Muir when towing an overnight pack. I’ve changed over the years into someone who doesn’t like walking in the mountains if I can avoid it, but everyone is different.
  
• My pack ended up being just over 30 pounds with my share of group gear. Nice and light for an overnight climb up Rainier. I wore my harness + gear and a camera bag with my camera + other stuff around my waist, so in total I had 35-38lbs. I remember when I used to always have 60. Not bringing a 15-pound camera dolly everywhere helps. I really love this pack though, it’s a super simple Arc’teryx FL 45L. I hadn’t tested it on a climb like this yet, ended up working great.
  
• Skinned up to Muir purposely taking our sweet time. It was actually nice and cool above Pan face.
  
• Piotr blazed ahead and was there ~1 hour before us. He definitely should’ve towed up that snowboard.
  
• Dereck had buried 36 Rainier beers around 9k ft in a previous training run up to Muir. He dug them up and I helped carry 5 up to the shelter to share with wary climbers.
  
• Route choice had been left up in the air. Options were Gib Ledges, ID via Cadaver Gap, ID via the Cathedral route. Gib Ledges had recently re-opened after the death of a climber below the ledges earlier in the week. Dereck and I had already done the route in Jan last year. Piotr had done it, but retreated at the top of Gib rock after weather came in, Alin hadn’t done it. None of us had done the Ingraham Direct route.
  
• I talked to as many people as possible at Muir for beta. A large group had done the ID and said it went, but veered onto the DC higher up and had a big crevasse crossing. Another party had climbed the ledges and were heading down the ID. I could now see them at the top of Cathedral Gap, and they confirmed the ID condition when they arrived at Muir around 230pm.
  
• Based on the recent spring melt out and the relatively summer-ish temps on the mountain, I didn’t want to be on the upper mountain when the sun started warming. Because of this I wanted to leave at 11pm. I compromised with the group for a 11:45 wake-up, 1am climb time.
  
• We ended up leaving Muir around 1:45am per my GPS. Dereck and I brought our splitboards, planning to stash them on the Ingraham Flats min.
  
• There was no moon, so it was dark. Planning for this I brought this new headlamp from Lupine called the Piko. Holy s the thing was bright. For 180g I don’t think you can get brighter. The lamp lit up the area from the DC to Gib rock on the ID, which helped at a few spots with route trend.
  
• We decided to skip Cadaver Gap due to some uncertainty and head up Catherdral instead. Alin was in the lead, with Piotr and Dereck behind me.
  
• Soon we were at the base of the ID on the Ingraham flats. We caught up with a party of two next to the top of Cadaver Gap. They told us they had just witnessed a serac collapse and the rumbling sounded like a 747 to them. We looked about 100ft to our right and saw the debris. It wasn’t huge, but it definitely wasn’t small. Some of the chunks probably would've killed you given a direct hit.
  
• The party of 2 started to head up the ID and we followed, passing them pretty quickly. I could tell they were very green, and probably shouldn't be on the mountain, especially in early spring. As we made our way over several crevasses and up a steep-ish part of the ID, I heard the leader of the pair screaming at his partner to go faster.
  
• There was quite a gaper at around 11,500ft that was harder to jump going uphill, but doable.
  
• Our pace felt very slow to me, something felt wrong as usually Alin is a lot faster. By 12k ft. I was taking a step or 2 every 3 seconds. I had to call a triage meeting. I really wanted to get off the ID before warming started, and I knew at this pace it wasn’t going to happen. Options were to turn around at a certain point, or split into 2 teams. I was up for either but I wasn’t up for staying together and reaching the summit regardless of how long it took. After some discussion Dereck and I roped up and head toward the summit. The snow felt edge-able enough to splitboard down most of the mountain, so those stayed on our backs.
  
• Above the top of the DC things got steeper and pretty wind-loaded. The climbing was sustained and direct, which meant we gained altitude really quickly. Dereck and I kept a strong clip and eventually linked up with the party of Ukrainian climbers who did the ledges. There was one other party of 2 and a solo climber who did the ledges. Later I learned the ledges were in pretty good shape. A bit icy, but manageable with steps from the party the previous night when the snow was softer.
  
• Dereck and I were first to the crater rim. The wind was pretty fierce from 12.5k to the summit. My fingers and toes could’ve definitely been warmer, but I knew we’d hit the top, make a 180, then head back down as the sun came up.
  
• We transitioned at the crater rim, then decided to try roped split-boarding as far as we felt comfortable. I took a crevasse fall last winter on the ID that made me think twice about not being roped on a glacier with greater uncertainty in crevasse locations. The wind loading from 13k upward really made it hard to know if there were hidden cracks. On the way up my axe would sail through that wind loaded stuff making it feel like I just found a gaper. Maybe sometimes I had, who knows. Anyway, neither of us were comfortable rolling the dice.
  
• Surprisingly riding roped wasn’t too bad. Before this I actually said I’d never ride roped because it sounded uncomfortable. But it seemed like it would give us a good balance of speed and protection. We kept an edge on the steeper wind-loaded/icy-ish stuff all the way to about 13k from the crater rim. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t awful.
  
• At the first awkward crevasse crossing we switched back to crampons. We knew there’d now be several crevasse crossings including a large one, so we just kept booting it down for efficiency.
  
• I tried to film me jumping the 4ft gaper at 11.5k ft, but something went wrong with my iphone. It was definitely one of the jumps you thought about a little before doing it. The snow was still icy-ish at this point, but right about 11.5k ft. is when we really felt the sun. This is the worst part of the route as it’s pretty broken up and you get really close to Gib rock, which likes to huck massive boulders down onto innocent climbers.
  
• At the top of Cadaver gap (11k ft) we put our boards back on, shed some layers and—thanks to early season conditions—we could actually board all the way to Muir (Cathedral Gap is completely snow covered). We waited at the top of the Cathedral gap for a bit though. The wind and the night had iced it up. It was still edge-able, but definitely not a spot you'd want to fall on given how hard it had become. We were hoping to see Alin/Piotr come down, but it didn't look like it was happening any time soon. 30-40 minutes later we headed down the gap, making that familiar edge-scraping ice sound the whole way down before shooting across the Cowlitz to Muir.
  
• The 2-person party we passed on the way up was at Muir, having turned around at some point. They had been up at Muir for 3 nights. He was carrying a large knife in a holster on his waist. His partner was this Asian guy who didn’t talk much. They had what looked like a 10.2mm 60m rope still in packaging the night before. I was taking a piss out toward the Cowlitz and he came up beside me to talk to me. I later heard him yelling a swearing outside the shelter at something – his partner again? Anyway, I’m sure they meant well but seemed sketchy.
  
• Dereck and I cruised down from Muir after Alin/Piotr returned. They took an hour nap. I couldn’t stick around because I kept dreaming about my dry socks in the car. Snow was firm until it plushed up perfectly around 7.5-8k ft. A thinner whiteout from the low clouds we saw earlier was in effect from 7-9k ft. It cast some really flat light that made depth perception almost non-existent. The snow got heavy at the top of Pan Face, and just kept getting heavier until the parking lot. We climbed up that little hill you skirt at the start of the climb, passing some Mountaineers doing self-arrest practice on the steep opposite side. We then headed down the other side, back to the parking lot. My nose caught in the heavy stuff and I did an aerial cartwheel into the mush.
  
• After a nap in the car and a BBQ Pork Sandwhich at the visitor center, we headed home. Heads up, 1 can of Rainier cost $5.75 at the visitor center.
  

 

Nice and cold (phone pic).

 

Dereck, Alin, and a member of another party about to leave Muir between 1-2am.

 

Taking shelter. Dereck on the crater rim at sunrise.

 

Crater rim, looking east around 630am.

 

Not a bad way to start the morning.

 

Blurry summit selfie of me and Dereck.

 

The 14k ft stare.

 

Ukrainian party member after coming up the ledges.

 

Ukrainian party members on the crater rim.

 

Getting ready to push off the crater rim back down to calmer winds and drier socks.

 

 

 

Near the top of the DC (12k ft), trying to get down the Ingraham before it gets warm.

 

Looking at the DC and Little Tahoma from the Ingraham (phone pic).

 

Gibraltar Rock from the Ingraham. The crack on the bottom left is maybe a 4ft. gap? There's probably another place to cross, but jumping it was fun (phone pic).

 

I went left like an idiot here and put another hole next to the one you see bottom-center. Thankfully and didn't fully punch through. Go right (phone pic).

 

The top of Cadaver gap. Higher-objective danger zone starts here up until you clear the seracs on the Ingraham. A serac collapsed just behind us here at around 3am (phone pic).

 

Cadaver Gap, sans massive crevasse you see there in the summer (phone pic).

 

Dereck and I switching back to snowboarding on the Ingraham Flats around 11k. The climbing route goes up to the left, then cuts back right toward the top of the DC.

 

 

Dereck and I wait a bit at the top of Cathedral gap, which was pretty icy. Low clouds and high winds have moved in around 9k ft. below (phone pic).

 

Staring down at Muir. Scraped my way down the gap then cruised across the Cowlitz (phone pic).

 

Most unbelievable thing about the trip. Paradise Visitor Center (phone pic).

 

Our tracks up.

 

 

 

 

Luke

Site / Instagram

Edited April 4, 2016 by lukeh

[lukeh]

Site is obviously having issues. You can see the TR at:

 

http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=36211.0

[JasonG]

Nice work Luke!! Looks like you made quick work of the whole thing, and no training. That sounds almost fun.

 

Too bad that the site is having issues, seems to be a thing. Jon?

[lukeh]

Thanks Jason - yeah I think better snow would've actually tipped it into the "fun" zone.