August 3-4, 2012, Mt Rainier, Winthrop Glacier

Summary: An outstanding midsummer ski descent from the summit of Mount Rainier in excellent corn snow, down a variation of the Emmons-Winthrop route which is not commonly skied or climbed in most years: the Winthrop Glacier direct from Camp Schurman to the summit via Winthrop Corridor, a steeper and nicer ski line than the normal Emmons Corridor. But surprisingly as of a week ago, the Emmons-Winthrop was rerouted to go this way, and it is now the standard maintained summit path from Camp Schurman. Even more surprisingly, we had almost total solitude on the route this day, with only 2 other parties climbing on foot and no other skiers, on a sunny Saturday which was likely the single most perfect weather day of 2012 thus far on the summit of Rainier.


Two-shot panorama / multiple exposure of sweet corn turns down the Winthrop Glacier.

It was also the warmest day of the year so far with temperatures reaching 93 °F in Seattle and the freezing level over 15000 ft with very light winds. Ideal weather for skiing a moderately-steep NE-facing route at 14000+ ft. The route consisted almost entirely of various types of corn snow from the summit down to the end of continuous snow at 6600 ft below Inter Glacier, with only a few patches of moderate frozen sastrugi to cross above 14000 ft and no hazardous mushy conditions anywhere even in late afternoon, the benefit of midsummer consolidation. Smooth springlike corn up high above 12000 ft, well-consolidated summer corn in the mid-elevations to 9000 ft, and solidly-consolidated dirty corn on the Inter Glacier.



An amazing ski run, among the best and most memorable I've ever had considering the snow conditions, uncommon route, and time of year. Just stunning to be able to ski this line, one which I've wanted to ski for over a decade but had never done, in excellent conditions in August!


(photo by HC)


Details: The Winthrop Corridor is a smooth mostly-uncrevassed ramp amidst the heavily-crevassed chaos of the Emmons-Winthrop Glaciers, a broad unbroken shoulder of snow extending from the edge of the summit dome near 14000 ft down below 10000 ft, at a pitch of 35-40 degrees. Just perfect ski terrain and always visible in plain sight from Camp Schurman, with a minor problem which keeps it from being a standard summit route: the toe of the Corridor near 10000 ft is heavily crevassed, usually preventing easy access from Camp Schurman without considerable crevasse navigation and hazard.

It has been several years since the Winthrop Glacier direct route was in good shape for access at the toe of Winthrop Corridor during the normal June-July ski season on the Emmons-Winthrop, perhaps since 2006 (see e.g.
View of the Winthrop Corridor and Inter Glacier from beside the White River.

However, due to major crevasse problems and serac collapses this year at the top of the Emmons Corridor, the Emmons-Winthrop route was re-routed on July 26 (see the
Zoomed view of the Winthrop Corridor and route from beside the White River.

Unfortunately, finding partners proved to be difficult given that it's August and most of my regular partners were doing other things -- why do most skiers mistakenly think the ski season is long over? even the spring-summer ski mountaineering season? even in an unusually great snowpack year like 2012? It looked like I would have to solo the route if I wanted to do it at all, which is not something that I really felt comfortable doing this year, although I have solo-skied the Emmons-Winthrop a couple of times previously (early July of 2009 and 2010). Thankfully, just as I was about to drive down to Rainier alone on Friday morning, I convinced Hannah to join me, and we eventually got a late afternoon start, which helped us nicely avoid the heat on the hike in.



We left White River Campground at 4:45pm, and although there were a few snow patches on the trail near 5600 ft, we knew it would be all hiking well past Glacier Basin. No bugs at White River or along the trail, but a few mosquitos were biting during a brief food break at Glacier Basin. We reached skinnable snow in about 4 miles and 2 hours near 6800 ft in the gully of the Inter Fork below Inter Glacier, and decided to skin up the now-shaded and re-firming dirty corn.



The snow was a bit too firm already for easy skinning, so Hannah switched back to booting on the steep section but I kept skinning the rest of the way up, to the usual bare crossover onto the Emmons at 9000 ft, which we reached right at sunset.


(photo by HC)

Unfortunately, I didn't realize until looking down from high above on the Winthrop the next day, that there was a perfect smooth ramp of snow connecting across from Camp Curtis near 8800 ft onto the Emmons, which would have allowed me to continue all the way to Camp Schurman on skis -- yes, there is still continuous skiable snow from the summit down to below 6600 ft via the Emmons-Winthrop and Inter Glaciers, highly unusual for August (or even July most years).


Zoomed view looking down on the Inter-Emmons crossing from high on the Winthrop Corridor.

So we booted down the crappy loose eroded path onto the Emmons, arriving just as the reddish near-full moon rose beyond the Emmons Glacier terminus at 9pm. The photo doesn't do justice to just how cool this moonrise was.



We reached Camp Schurman near 9:30pm, and spent the next hour eating dinner and melting 7 liters of water for the evening and the next day. Despite the 15000 ft freezing level, it was quite chilly at Schurman with a cool easterly breeze, and we were both wearing full down jackets. We planned a leisurely start on a skier's schedule the next morning, so the late arrival was no big deal. But the unexpectedly gusty wind and the usual scurrying mice (how do they survive the winter with no food at 9500 ft??) made getting to sleep difficult in our open bivy with sleeping bags and pads only, no tent.




I awoke with a start at 6am, about 10 minutes after sunrise and annoyed to be too late to view the full glory of the dawn and sunrise colors (apparently the moon was setting over the summit just before sunrise, too). It was still quite chilly in the shaded portions of the camp until the run rose high enough to shine over the rocks, so we were not eager to get up until then.



We headed up just before 8am, cramponing on foot and roped up. The bootpack traverses west from Camp Schurman, going up to 9700 ft then losing perhaps 50 ft in a gentle traverse below a large serac-fall area, before beginning a series of switchbacks through crevasses up the toe of Winthrop Corridor. The crux was at 10200 ft, with a snow-block crevasse crossing and about 50 ft of semi-hard gray glacial ice, followed by an open crevasse with a 3 ft step needed to cross it, enough to give us a long pause for contemplation.


Two-shot panorama of the Winthrop Glacier just above the crux area.

The route weaves through a few more crevasses up to about 10600 ft, where it climbs directly over a large crack via some fallen blocks, which looked nasty but was easy to ascend -- skiing down across it would end up being a bit more difficult. Above that it was a cruise, a smooth ramp with almost no crevasse issues. Above 13000 ft, there were a handful of obvious sags and crevasses and the bootpack needlessly crossed three open crevasses which each had an easy end-run around to the right, which we decided to do in each case.



We unroped above the last crevasses at 14000 ft and stayed on snow up to the north side of the east crater rim near 14300 ft, then took the crampons off to hike the mostly-bare rim to the true summit, with a deep trench through the snow for the final yards.



We topped out on Columbia Crest at 1:45pm, in total solitude and nearly calm winds, with a maximum wind gust of 10mph over several minutes. True air temperature in the shade was about 37 °F, but it felt much warmer with the bright sunshine and cloudless skies. Just an absolutely gorgeous day to be atop the highest point in the Cascade Range.



We skied down around 2:20pm, finding a large patch of smooth corn on a NW aspect just a few feet below the summit. A few short sections of sastrugi to bounce over as we traversed back east to rejoin the bootpack, but otherwise the snow was mostly smooth and mostly softened enough for good skiing.


Skiing the patch of corn off of the NW side of Columbia Crest. (photo by HC)

The corn was just barely softened enough as we rolled over from the summit dome onto the steepest part of the Winthrop Corridor near 13800 ft, but it quickly became just right as we descended further.


(photo by HC)



The Corridor narrows below 12000 ft, and so there are more crevasses near the route, but it was easy to make turns on smooth snow just off to either side of the bootpack while staying safely away from the cracks.



The crevasse at 10600 ft required either a small jump, or a down-climb of about 5 ft across the blocks wedged in its opening, and then it was a series of cautious turns staying close to the switchbacking bootpack through the crevasses below that.


Two-shot panorama / multiple exposure of turns through the crevasses near the toe of the Winthrop Corridor.

We skied the entire route except for about 50 vertical feet at the crux crevasse near 10200 ft, where we stepped across the 3 ft gap and downclimbed the bare glacial ice in crampons. Actually, it turns out that this entire crux area could have been easily bypassed by traversing around to its east, and we found out when we got back to camp that the climbing rangers were planning to reroute this section the next day. It's too bad that I didn't think to look at my zoomed photos from Camp Schurman, but the thought never crossed my mind to do so as we skied down to the crux.


Zoomed view of the crevasses at the toe of the Winthrop Corridor, showing a possible route around the bare glacial ice and open crevasse near 10200 ft.

Below the crux, the rest of the ski was a cruise except the uphill portion of the traverse, which was a bit of work to shuffle-step up without skins (we'd left the skins at camp). The snow conditions were still good all the way down to Camp Schurman. A large number of parties had arrived and the camp was much more crowded than the night before -- clearly there would be a lot more than 2 parties climbing the route on Sunday, but we saw no other skiers there. Several people told us that they had enjoyed watching our ski descent of the route from camp.



We packed up our minimal campsite, chatted with the climbing rangers for a while, and skied down the short section of the Emmons Glacier at 5:30pm. The snow was surprisingly nice, mostly smooth soft corn and totally uncrevassed to skier's right (east) of the bootpack.



We took the skis off at the glacier's edge, climbed a short bit to the flat traverse trail towards Camp Curtis, and then rejoined the snow ramp which provided a skiable traverse right to site #1 at the camp (see photo above, looking down from the Winthrop). This would have been a fine way to go on the ascent to Schurman, as the crevasses near and below the snow ramp were not very threatening, and easily passable on skis.



Even on the Inter Glacier, the snow skied much better than expected and better than it looked (rough, bumpy, suncupped). It was still well softened in the sun at 6pm, and the various ridges and bumps could be carved over and through easily. There are a number of large open crevasses and sags on various parts of the glacier, more than I've seen on any previous ski trip (although I've only skied it this late in the year once before, following a summit ski via the standard Emmons route on August 1, 2011). We saw a couple of fresh ski tracks from earlier in the day, but for me the Inter Glacier would no longer be a worthwhile destination on its own for turns this summer -- there are much better options on Rainier (e.g. Paradise or Fryingpan Glaciers) or Baker with a lot more skiing and less hiking.



Below 7500 ft, the steep slope at the Inter Glacier's terminus is very dirty and strewn with large numbers of fallen rocks. Still skiable and even fun with caution, and below it we followed the cleaner snow-filled gully of the Inter Fork down to 6600 ft.



We switched back to shoes and with a short cross-country traverse, we were back on the trail. The steep moraine portion of the trail was miserable as usual, but at least there was a profusion of wildflowers to enjoy and it had cooled down in the evening from the near-record highs of the day. We were back to the car by 8:30pm with plenty of daylight to spare, tired but not exhausted, and stoked to have skied the Winthrop Corridor in amazing conditions.



I've had a lot of great volcano ski trips since mid-May this year, mostly in prime corn snow conditions (Rainier 3x, Little Tahoma, Shasta 4x, Adams, Baker, South Sister 3x, Middle Sister 2x, Lassen 2x, among others). But this one feels like the climax of an outstanding 2012 spring-summer ski season, finally skiing a long-sought route on the great Mountain in excellent conditions, in August no less! About 10400 ft of total ascent for 7800 vert of mostly good to great skiing, much of it on nice corn, and all of it in solitude. Especially nice to spend part of the warmest day of the year at the coolest spot in Washington and probably the entire lower 48, fully 56 °F cooler than Seattle was on this day. I can't believe nobody else was up there skiing it and avoiding the heat! The route probably will be good for another week or two at most, as summer warmth is expected to continue.