Skier rescued on Mount Rainier

Sam is a great guy I hope for him a speedy recovery from the broken leg.
He is a super helpful ranger, one of the real super people. He has climbed that route a zillion times in the last few years. His family is a little freaked about the incident, but you know it's part of the program.
You go to barber shop enough times and your bound to get a haircut eventually.
Good to hear that he will get to see Abby and his awesome golden retrievers again!

Joe - as in stor a ski Abby?

Last time I climbed the Emmons to the summit (Not my last attempt) we got down the whole route with no incidents but at this last area when you're nearly home free, my buddies leg went through up to his waist.

It seems like this location might be custom-made for accidents of this sort. Consider:

1. The Emmons and Winthrop glaciers split at Steamboat Prow. There may be a zone above the prow where the glaciers are pulling apart and crevasses form more or less parallel to the line between the prow and Rainier's summit.

2. Crevasses normally form perpendicular to glacier flow so they most often form perpendicular to the fall line. Climbers probably get used to this.

3. When you get close to Camp Schurman and Steamboat Prow there is a natural tendency to let your guard down.

I don't know if there is anything about that location that would make hidden crevasses more likely than anywhere else. But it seems like there are other factors that make Steamboat Prow a better than average booby trap.

Joe - as in stor a ski Abby?

That is the one, sweet person & the biggest smile on the planet!

I was thinking about what Lowell had written and to add a no-brainier, obvious comment that just makes me look smart, but really I'm not...
The crevasse season is opening on a mountain near you.
Sam has offered on many occasions to guide me up for a summit ski, but I'm a low altitude skier, not a real summit tagger. I trust him and his years of experience in that area of the mountain, If I wasn't such a crevasse chicken I would take him up on it. This event really builds my confidence.

I was at Schurman on July 1-2 and skied the Emmons ( see TR ). The word around camp was that Sam skied directly into an open crevasse, bouncing off the wall as he fell. This is in sharp contrast to news reports which state that "he broke through the snow crust" or "broke through a snow bridge". Of course, this is just pure hearsay from climbers at camp, and may be inaccurate or even totally wrong. However, given the very low probability of a skier breaking through a bridge in that area and the almost total historical abscence of skier-crevasse-falls in the Cascades under summer conditions, I was inclined to believe the story. I do know that people punch through on foot very often just before Emmons Flats (including a partner of mine on a previous climb), and the bootpack / stampede path is already crossing several incipient cracks 6-12" wide, so I'm sure climbers will be punching through quite often during this mini heat-wave.

It would be nice to find out the real facts of the incident sometime soon, before speculating further about the crevasse situation in that area, and whether or not it was a hidden crevasse. In any case, best wishes to Sam for a speedy recovery, I don't think I've met him yet, but hope to someday on the Mountain.

A few hours before we saw Amar on Thursday at Camp Schurman, we talked with an Alpine Ascents guide on the trail to Glacier Basin. We had seen his group at Emmon Flats on Monday (when Jeff Huber and I were doing a preview/practice tour, after skiing the Fryingpan the prior day w/ Greg Louie). The guide confirmed that the ranger had indeed skied right into a crevasse (as opposed to falling then sliding into a crevasse, or breaking through a snowbridge), and indeed that it was right next to Emmons Flats.
(Fortunately our ski from the summit on Friday was entirely uneventful!)