| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-08-24 18:32:32 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Boston Basin
Sahale Sharkfin Tower ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mt. Rainier - Kautz carryover back in seattle, we stop in downtown to do some quick laundry, restock on some key food items, and swing by REI. Things take longer than expected, but we get out of there and head south. Another stop at some sketchy Mexican restaraunt with highly viscous iced tea. Then cruisin over to Rainier. The backroads are nice and windy, and Christiaan has a good time driving them. We get near the park, and start looking for a place to crash. We find a place with a vacancy sign, bu tthey just filled up. The lady gives us some advice on another place. more places all filled up. eventually we get a tip on a place. We head up and sign up. Of the three accomodations available, Christiaan negotiates for us to get the one not in a tree and without 6" of sand on the floor. we crash, and get up at 6:30. Driving by 7:30. I'm surprised it takes that long, but it is a MITOC trip... We drive intot he park and up to paradise. The weather is misty and cool. Once we get to paradise, we run inside to snag permits. no problem. No one has been on the route for a while, but it should be in good shape. We fill out the paperwork and get a stack of bluebags, then back to the cars to repack. We are finally on the trails at about 11:30. holy crap. We start out on paved trails throught the meadows and wildflowers. Then dirt paths higher up. suddenly we're above the cloud layer and get a peek at Rainier and Adams. Now its time to look for a way down onto the Nisqually. I spot a possible climber's path at glacier vista, but we decide to keep heading up a bit to try and conserve some of our elevation. no great ways present themselves, so we traverse down when the trail cuts back. Its loose scree, but not quite steep enough to be dangerous. We work our way down to a trail on the lateral moraine. Then down again and across a snowfield. time for some sunscreen. We start up a dirty gravel covered section of the glacier. Its relatively flat, but crevasses start to show up. We end up at the junction of two crevasses. Time to rope up and cross at a little block. Andy is not feeling well, so he decides to bail and heads back out. We get up and out onto some cleaner terrain. We stop at the base of the Wilson and grab some water at a stream. Then up some snow, trying to wind around ugly patches. We head up left then cut back right on a snow band. The route gets bad to the right, so I head out straight up. Lots and lots of little crevasses and seracs. Its awkward climbing, and some of the ice is rock hard, so out come the tools. We wind our way though, maybe a full ropelength worth, and get up onto open snow above. Val punches through at the last horizontal weakness, but nothing serious. up next we came to a higher flat spot and took a rest. From there we could either go up and right through a snow band, or traverse left up to the skyline. The skyline route has a trage of old footprints, but looks very steep. The snowband looks like it has a section of ice halfway up. We decide to head up to the skyline. Fortunately, our line curls around a bit as we head up, so it never gets more than about 45 degrees. once we get to the skyline, we head up right, just under a cleaver. Up at the next flat spot, we take a break, and consider our options. There is another camp about 1500' higher, just under the Turtle snowfield. We could be there before dark. Eventually we decide to camp where we are. Bror and Val start setting up camp and melting snow, while Steve, Christiaan, and I head over to a crevasse to look for water. We traverse over on our route for tomorrow. It looks a bit dicy from camp, but once we're on it, there is actually a shallow runout just below. no worries. No luck in the crevasse, so we head back and get more stoves melting snow. For dinner we have mashed potatoes, ginger, and salami. Delicious. We catch the sunset on the cleaver, and get to bed by about 9. up at 5 in the morning. We have some breakfast and break camp. We head out on the traverse to under the turtle. up some steep snow. We hit the base of a rock section, with a steep buttress ahead, and a questionable snow traverse to the right. we step left through some 3rd class terrain onto the rock section, then up to the base of the turtle. from here itis a steep snow slog up. The snow surface starts to have large ablation hollows. This makes it difficult to head straight up, but it also reduces the danger of a long slide. We continue up along the right side, directly next to a rock finger. we check out some aircraft wreckage, probably that helicopter from a few years back. Finally we get to the top of the Turtle and onto the Nisqually Cleaver. We are looking for a good campsite somewhere safely below Camp Hazard. After a while, we find a possible good, protected spot around 10,500'. Steve and Val head up a bit more to see if there is anything else, and find the fixed rappel line. It is super sketchy, with several foot-long sections of core exposed. So we set up camp, and have pasta with sauteed garlic and rehydrated jerky in tomato sauce. mmmm. Some of the guys didn't like the look of the sections we had climbed for a descent route, so we decide to carry over the summit and descend the DC. we're in bed before sunset. up at 2 in the morning. we break down camp and head up tp the rap station. The first section is about 250' of steep-ish ice and snow. Steve leads up on one rope, then brings up all four simulclimbing on the second rope. up another section like that to the flatter middle section of the chute. At the base of the next section, it looks a bit steeper, with even hard ice in the middle, and a maze of small seracs on the right. The ice is too hard for a comfortable lead with pack in the middle, so Steve heads up the right. I second him dragging the other rope. Steve then leads up the next pitch, a moderate wandering pitch. The plan is to ferry up people with the two topropes. Once Bror gets up, steve decides he probably can't throw his rope back down to me, so he fixes it, and we use it as a handline. With a bit of work, I am able to get the robe back down to the base. Flipping the rope back and forth doesn't work, since the full 200' is out (heavy) and touching various seracs. The trick is to pull back, then let the rope fall and feed out. After everyone is up to the top station, Steve heads out again though some moderate terrain, and brings everyone up simulclimbing on the rope. once Christiaan gets to the belay, Steve sends him up on the glacier above. After the last guy is at the belay, Steve ties in with a quarter of the other rope. Christiaan heads up for a while, but hits a crevasse he can't get around. I take over the lead and chop out a way across. We make some decent progress winding through the crevasses. There is a big icefall straight up. There is a big crevasse up left with a possible route around to the far left. This would take us up steep terrain up to Point Success. To the right, there are some crevasses where the glacier meets the cleaver. They are more abundant, but smaller and maybe passible. We head up straight to get a better look at the options. I don't like the look of the route to the left, even though it looks clean. Unfortunately this means a long traverse over to the right. Around some village size crevasses. There isn't a good line though the crevasses on the right, but there is access to the cleaver. so we head up on the rock. I pop in a quick axe jam belay in some rocks to bring the next off the glacier and onto a more stable section. Then up the cleaver, to some bivy sites for a rest. Its getting a bit late, but we only have 1500' left to the summit. The route above to the left (upper kautz) could be clean, with one possible crevasse high up. On the right (upper niqually), it looks clean, but we can't see into a depression just off the cleaver. Steve and I have a pow-wow. The routes need some investigating, and its also getting late. Maybe bivy there? Steve heads down for some blue bag consideration, and I talk to the gang. They also come up with the bivy idea, so we get some people starting on melting snow, while Val and I check out the route on the right. Well, to our surprise, there is a 50' deep, 10-20' across crevasse. there is a snowbridge to the uphill side, but would require some sketchy vertical ice climb traversing to get to. to the right, there is a big serac that fell and bridged it. Then farther down to the right, the crevasse narrows and ends. I head across the serac on a hint of a trail, and find a clean route on the other side. The bridge to the serac is pretty weak, but should be fine in the morning. Val and Steve both end up finding liquid water on the glacier right next to the camp. This saves us a lot of time and fuel. For dinner, we have pasta with pesto sauce. mmm. up at 3 in the morning. breakfast and break camp. its cold and windy. a tent blows away, but I dive after it and grab it before it goes into oblivion. doesn't seem so cold any more. I take the lead again, and we head out across the serac and up the hill. We get into an old track and make good progress upward. the track leads over to a rock section, so we leave it and head up. we get into a steep steep section. we are gaining elevation quickly, and the route looks clear of the sharp spikes that indicated crevasses yesterday. unfortunately, I get to the top of the steep section, and find a huge crevasse: 15 feet across, deeper than I can see, and pretty much across the whole glacier. There is no way to the left, so we head back down and to the right. we head through a weak section in the crevasse with smaller crevasses above and below - a good way to find a way across the big guys. Some more winding back and forth around the big guys. progress is slow from a lot of traversing, but no backtracking. The last big guy cuts all the way to the left. It intersects another big guy to make a super crevasse. so we head to the right. There is a weak seeming center section between the two crevasses. we're not sure if it is a snowbridge or actual ice section. The top crevasse narrows to something that looks like a snowbridge. I head up, and find it to be two snaller cevasses overlapping. After working over to a stronger section, I have Val pound in a picket, then I chop a section in the top lip and climb over. It holds, I work around a small crevasse above, and pound in another picket. After this, we are able to regain a series of tracks. We follow them up for a while, until they start to traverse over to a cleaver on the summit cone. We head straight up, and skirt some crevasses. Finally, we get onto the summit cone. after a bit of slogging, we are on the crater rim. A quick break, and we head over to the summit. There is a bunch of ladies on the top. sweet. we take some more victory pictures, and head down into the crater. time to make some delicious pudding mini-pies that steve carried. Steve gets a thesis editing pitcure. We head out on a trail (1' wide, 3' deep!) up and out of the crater to the DC route. it is beaten out and wanded. at the first junction, we take the beaten out path down (fresh-ish tracks), in case the other route heads down the winthrop-emmons. It is a nice gradual descent, with brainlessly obvious routefinding. We jump across a couple of crevasses with melted out bridges. eventually we join up with the wanded route. the one above must have skirted these. more easy beaten out stuff. the route winds around to the left, but there is nothing to the right (where we need to go). eventually we cut back, and see the top of the disapointment cleaver. Val punches though one leg. Then Bror punches through up to his waist. After taking off his pack, he is able to get out. some slightly sketchy traversing with a fixed line and under a big icefall, and we are on the cleaver. more snow descent. We can't see the descent route (looks really steep) but we know the rest of the route should be like the stuff we already came down -- EASY. we zig-zag down into the internal snowfields in the cleaver. Then into a rock section. We stay roped up, which slows us down a lot in the short zig-zags of the rock trail. We are almost back onto the glacier when disaster strikes. A big rock (beach ball sized, 500lbs) comes down. Steve jumps out of the way, then the rock hit the trail and deflects toward Bror. He sees it coming straight for him, and dives over a cliff to get out of the way. Steve grabs a rock and arrests the fall. Christiaan is first on scene and starts first aid. Bror's head is bloody, and he is a bit out of it, but conscious. He keeps the head still, and gets him on a pad. no obvous threats to life except possible c-spine damage. Some more cleaning and treatment, and Bror seems to improve. He says it seems like a muscle strain. Christiaan runs an assisted range of motion on the head. It is good enough that we move him down to a more protected section a little below. We get him comfortable, and decide to wait for a bit to see if the condition deteriorates any, before we clear him and walk down to the flats below. The guides at the flats below see the whole thing, and send a party of five up. They do a check him out, and radio down to the ranger at camp Muir. They also think he is probably fine, and suggest we walk to the flats and reevaluate there. They head out with his backpack, but are moving so quickly that we don't see the route from the rock to the glacier. we rope up, with Steve and Christiaan far out front, and Bror shortroped between me and Val. The step onto the glacier is sketchy (1' wide rib between a steep slope and a crevasse), and we want to put on crampons before getting on it. The guides yell for us to get out of there. We manage to get on the glacier just as a rockslide comes down. whew. we come down to the flats, slowly and deliberately. As we come in, it is weird. we were expecting some sort of reception (at least a dude waiting with Bror's pack), but there is nothing. Steve gets about 5' from a tent before somebody tells him where Bror's pack is. I guess they decided he was fine enough, and didn't want to become responsible for him. Eventually somebody comes over to chat. he hooks us up with some water, and we give his group out extra fuel in exchange. (kept a liter in reserve). We get some beta in the route below, put some warmer clothes on Bror (who is is in good shape, but with a painful neck), and head out. We divide up the contents of his pack, and Val takes the extra backpack. We are moving slow, but not that much slower than before. Down through another rock section and some loose gravel. Then a flat glacier section with rocks everywhere. had to keep moving to get out of the danger zone. Eventually we get close to Muir, and a ranger is waiting for us. I give her the story, as we walk in, and she starts to work on him. She gets a doctor guy who gives him a check, and declares him fine with a stiff neck. some redressing of the head wounds, repacking, and a bit of rest, and we head down the Muir snowfield. Before we leave, the rangers ask us to look out for some lost asian guy. The snowfield is bumpy, but is still glissadable in 6' sections. We find an asian guy about halfway down. He is not the one we're looking for. He doesn't have a headlamp, but it is getting dark pretty soon, so I give him mine. Eventually we get to the paradise trails. About half a mile down we run into Andy. Sweet! he grabs Bror's pack, and we all head down. the trails switch over to pavement, which turns my feet into hamburger. We get to Paradise, which is closed. no way to sign out. fortunately we catch a ranger driving by and he says he'll take care of it. We drive around and try to find a place to get a shower. The ranger told us about a campsite that leaves the showers on all night. Unfortunately there are some dudes at the gate. so it is off to Denny's for some 2am breakfast and repacking of the cars. Everybody gets home alright. -dw |