June 4-5 Fuhrer Finger

Answered Mats call for partner to ski Rainier this weekend and I am glad I did. The forecast looked too good to pass up. We mulled over the avy warnings a bit but decided to go see what it was like. Got permits and headed out around 6am, camped below the rocks around 2pm or so. We lazed about and saw about 5 people ski it on Sat. Probably twice that skied it on Sunday. We left camp around 4:30. A cloud came to sit on the top when we were about 13,600 or so and the thought of navigating what was below us in less than good visibility caused us to call it there. We had watched Adams get eaten by clouds, then Helens (in hindsight, this was because we were climbing up into the cloud rather than the southern volcs getting more weather). I believe we were heading down around 2pm or so. Top had an awkward crust that hindered turns and climbing up, the top two thirds of the finger itself was lovely corn about the time we got it, and when we reached camp below the finger it was just soup. There are cracks opening up but many options exist to cross them, if the weather is anywhere near as warm as this weekend when you try it and you aren't on skis then bring some kind of snow shoes. There were a couple of postholes thru bridges which mustn't have been much fun.

Matt, it was terrific to meet and ski with you, once again the partners part of this site delivers. Lots more bad pictures where these came from so I will burn you a disk or something.