Hiking through the
Wonderland Trail jungle | 
Summerland alpine scene,
with Little Tahoma | 
Summerland alpine meadows,
with Little Tahoma |
Bowl south of Meany Crest | 
Mountain goats in the bowl | 
Slag heap |
Josh checks the map | 
Little Tahoma and Mount
Rainier from Fryingpan Glacier | 
Skinning up the
Fryingpan Glacier |
Close up of Little Tahoma
and Emmons Glacier | 
Skinning with Whitman Crest,
Little Tahoma, and Mt. Rainier | 
Skinning Fryingpan Glacier
toward Whitman Crest |
Whitman Glacier and Little
Tahoma from Whitman Crest | 
Skiing the Fryingpan Glacier
from Whitman Crest | 
Skiing the lower
Fryingpan Glacier |
Skiing the lower
Fryingpan Glacier | 
Strolling through the
meadows of Summerland | 
Wonderland Trail along
Fryingpan Creek |
Photos by Jeff Huber
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Backcountry skiing trip report: Fryingpan Glacier, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, July 17, 2004
Two favorable July TAY trip reports had implanted the inclination to ski the Fryingpan Glacier. A bit after 5am I picked up Tri-Ungulate (Launce), who was visiting from Utah, and we headed towards Mount Rainier to meet Skinnyskier (Josh), Chris, John and Silas. At the Fryinpan Creek trailhead we were unable to find Silas. After waiting we relucantly started without him hoping he'd either catch us or was already ahead. I later learned Silas was waiting at the park entrance so we could carpool to avoid crowding the small parking lot. Sorry we missed you Silas!
We hiked the Wonderland Trail past Summerland to the prominent bowl south of Meany Crest. We had hoped to ascend this bowl to gain the Fryingpan Glacier but the bowl's upper portion appeared quite steep.
After a bit of discussion, indecision, and observing two packs of wildlife (Wolves? Goats? Sasquatches?) cross the bowl, we ascended a few hundred vertical feet of scree on the bowl climber's right, traversed north, then booted-up several steepish slopes to the top of Meany Crest and the edge of the glacier. From here we skinned to ~9000ft on Whitman Crest, south of the crest's highest point. We descended around 3:30 on nicely corned snow with minimial suncups. We skied towards the slopes west of Summerland where we found phenomenal skiing on steep slopes. We followed the snow as far as we could doing a few ackward portages until we were about level with Summerland.
Based on the descent, though I don't think we lost that much time, it is probably more efficient to gain the Fryingpan Glacier by climbing the snow ramps southwest of Summerland rather then ascending the bowl south of Meany Crest. The snow below the Fryingpan is getting sparse so I'm not sure how much longer this tour will last.
Jeff |
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