Emmons Route Report: June 12

Despite the recent heavy snows, it sounds like the Emmons Route is in good shape, according to the climbing rangers. An excerpt:

"The storm passed and the climbers came out. Over the past few days, the weather turned out to be exceptional. Climbing Rangers climbed the Emmons route on Thursday finding the conditions to be great cramponing with some wind loaded slabs, all of the slabs were easy to avoid and had actually filled in some of the crevasses that were starting to yawn open 2 weeks ago....Overall the Emmons is in excellent shape with great climbing all the way to the summit. With high pressure moving in this week now is a great time to climb."

Happy father's day.

Forecast: 7 Below Zero (F) + 45 MPH Winds....

...I don't even WANT to know what the wind chill factor comes to....

...HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 8 AM
PDT TUESDAY...

.MONDAY...RAIN AND SNOW. SNOW LEVEL 6000 FEET. 
.MONDAY NIGHT...RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS...HEAVY AT TIMES. UP TO 15
INCHES ACCUMULATION. SNOW LEVEL LOWERING TO 2500 FEET BY MIDNIGHT.
.TUESDAY...SHOWERS. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION 6 TO 20 INCHES. SNOW
LEVEL 3500 FEET. 
.TUESDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW
LEVEL 5500 FEET. 
.WEDNESDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL
7000 FEET. 

&&
TEMPERATURE AND WIND FORECASTS FOR SELECTED LOCATIONS.

                       MON    MON    TUE    TUE    WED  
                            NIGHT         NIGHT        

SUMMIT   (14411 FT)      7     -6      6      8     10
                      W 51  NW 45  NW 39   N 30   N 28 

Rainier Backcountry Trails and Backcountry Report: 6/5

Be prepared for winter conditions. Check avalanche and weather conditions prior to your visit to the backcountry.

NOTE: As of June 2, 2008, there is about 11.5 feet of snow on the ground at Paradise (elev. 5,420 feet). The park received heavy snows this winter and spring with approximately 900 inches of snow at this point. This could lead to a late-lingering snowpack that may well affect the early hiking season in that it will make navigating early season hikes quite challenging. Avalanche danger will be a concern in early season as well.

Crevasse Rescue Training: The Bob Report

Last weekend, Bob headed up to Mt. Rainier for more alpine training. Here's his report (image: Mount Rainier Cam, June 1, 2008):

Crevasse training was way cool, downright chilly in fact. Michele and the kids came down with me and spent the night. We went to Northwest Trek on Saturday and saw all the wild animals there. That was fun. We went up and hiked around some at Longmire and watched the pools bubble up. I had to carry the sleeping Henry - the boy refused to nap earlier - and now he couldn't keep his eyes open to check out the deer munching about. Not as heavy as our packs will be, nor as steep of a trail, but a start.

I was better dressed this time with lightweight nylon pants that the legs zip off to make shorts. Didn't do that, too cold and not a speck of blue sky. I was concerned that I would be underdressed, not so. Our guide was in a hurry to get up to where we could practice and I was soon sweating like an overworked peasant farmer. Plenty warm, shed the hat on the way and I remembered to put the hat back on when we got up to the precipice at about 6600 feet. I still need to figure out a sweat management system to keep my glasses from fogging up and becoming useless. Even remembered to reapply sunscreen frequently and happily my head didn't fry.

Before we took the bus up to Paradise, we spent an hour practicing knots, prussic, overhand, figure eights, clove hitch, etc.. At the precipice we started out building ERNST (Equalized, Redundant, No slack, Secure, & Timely) anchoring systems, dead men buried in the snow, stakes driven in, lashed together with rope and carabineers (scratch your nose, don't pick it...).

We then broke up into teams of three with one of us falling over the edge and the other two arresting our fall and rigging up the ropes to pull us up to safety. Single pulley, Z pulley, all pretty cool stuff. A little head scratching trying to remember which end of the rope to pull on after running it through pulleys and such and not let the pour sod dangling over the edge down any more. Realized that I need some more toys and chunks of rope so that I can practice pulling furniture around the house.

The weather was not quite miserable, but it was blowing, raining, and sleeting intermittently. Visibility started out at about 100 yards on the way up and shrunk to about 10 yards on the way down which led to an interesting trip down the mountain. We dropped into a bowl a bit prematurely and had to hike back up to get a better track down to Paradise. It was eerily quiet as we scrambled along trying hard not to lose sight of the person in front of us. We all made it safely back to the bus and made it back to RMI.

Back at RMI they had ropes hanging from the rafters and we practiced climbing up the rope using prussic slings. Felt a bit like Bond, James Bond (and Jim Whittaker) when he used his shoe laces to climb. Henry was cheering me on yelling "Yes! Dad, Did it!" as I rang the bell - that made the whole thing worthwhile, that and the big high five he gave me.

...To which JohntheClimbingMentor replied:

Wow-sounds great, Bob. Rob can regale you with our Vermont version of same, dangling from the warm and dry fly grid 30 feet over the Hyde Park Opera House stage. Thought I'd lost Rob in the lobby for a minute or two, but eventually we did manage to make it out the front door....

Hyde Park Opera House:

First 2008 Report From the Emmons Route

Here's the first climbing report I've seen this year for our planned route up Mt. Rainier (White River Campground > Glacier Basin > Camp Schurman > Emmons Glacier > Summit)(Source: Mt Rainier Climbing Rangers):

Emmons/Winthrop Glacier approach: May 24th, 2008

The road to White River is still not open due to the large amounts of snow removal required this year, and as a result the approach to east side routes has become very long. Parties should allow between 6 and 10 hours just getting to Glacier basin. (See road conditions for current information)

Although the Glacier Basin trail is still covered by multiple feet of snow in most places, this allows fairly easy travel with skis since most of the fallen trees and streams are still under the snowpack. Expect conditions to change quickly as the weather warms and the snow continues to melt. There have been a few parties hiking in but there is no real boot track to follow, so be prepared to do some route finding on the way in. There is some bright yellow flagging in some less obvious areas of the trail, but much of the route is unflagged.

The route up the Inter Glacier to Camp Schurman is very direct right now with only one visible crevasse. The skiing in this area is excellent and with the longer approach people could have a less crowded wilderness experience if they are willing to work a little harder.

Let's hope they get that road plowed between now and June 22nd. These pictures of road clearing efforts this Spring at Cayuse Pass (a few miles from our access road) will give you some idea of what they're up against.

Today's Mt. Rainier High-Camp Weather

WINDY

Weather readings from Camp Muir, roughly 4,300 feet below the summit (our high camp will be at Camp Schurman, but the elevations are equivalent):

        4-29-2008
          Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center
          Camp Muir, Mt Rainier National Park, Washington
          Data also courtesy Mt Rainier National Park
          
          Wind sensors unheated and may rime
          Wind direction likely out

            MM/DD   Hour   Temp     RH   Wind   Wind   Wind   Wind
                     PST      F      %    Min    Avg    Max    Dir
                         10100' 10100' 10100' 10100' 10100' 10100'
          --------------------------------------------------------
             4 28   1500     19     96     29     42     56    353
             4 28   1600     20     97     27     33     48    353
             4 28   1700     17     96     25     40     50    353
             4 28   1800     17     95     26     35     41    353
             4 28   1900     18     96     22     27     33    353
             4 28   2000     17     95     25     29     33    353
             4 28   2100     15     95     24     31     37    353
             4 28   2200     15     95     24     31     42    353
             4 28   2300     14     95     23     33     42    353
             4 29      0     12     93     26     39     50    353
             4 29    100      9     92     29     38     47    353
             4 29    200      6     92     16     26     38    353
             4 29    300      7     91     16     24     32    353
             4 29    400      7     91     10     19     28    353
             4 29    500      6     91     13     22     32    353
             4 29    600      7     91     15     21     33    353
             4 29    700      8     91     13     22     30    353
             4 29    800      9     91      8     18     28    353
             4 29    900     10     91     11     17     25    353
             4 29   1000     11     91     10     19     26    353
             4 29   1100     13     91     10     15     20    353
             4 29   1200     13     91      7     15     25    353
             4 29   1300     14     92      8     14     21    353
             4 29   1400     14     92      1     10     16    353

Vermont Winter = Rainier Summer?

It's been a relatively mild winter here in Vermont, thought we're having a bit of a cold snap at the moment. It was three degrees (F) yesterday morning when I got up. Still, that's not all that cold for a morning in early February (in Vermont)--but cold enough.

The thing is, the wind was coming up, and by the time I got off the bus in Burlington the wind was gusting to 30 MPH. That brings a wind chill of about twenty degrees below zero.

It was a looong 12 minute walk to my office in that wind.

My face hurt. It just plain hurt.

The wind made me grimace, and I had to remind myself to pull my lips back over my teeth because they hurt too. And I worried, irrationally, that they would shatter into little bits, like safety glass.

Man.

I know it will be June when I'm up on Rainier, but doesn't it get weather like this? Even in June? I mean, doesn't it basically stick up into the jet stream?

All I can find right now is a current forecast for the Rainier summit…it says the low tonight on the summit will be minus 13, with 44 mile-an-hour winds. That's a wind chill of minus 50 degrees.

It's no walk to the office.