Home > Trip Reports > May 17, 2012, Mt Rainier, Muir to Nisqually Bridge

May 17, 2012, Mt Rainier, Muir to Nisqually Bridge

5/17/12
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
36570
31
Posted by Amar Andalkar on 5/18/12 8:32am
Despite a marginal weather forecast (mostly cloudy with a chance of showers, snow level 5500 feet), Thursday dawned sunny and nice looking out the window and on the Rainier webcams, so James Rowe and I decided to take our chances and head up to Muir. After my showed that it was likely to be partly-to-mostly sunny all day, especially at high elevations, with an 8000 ft freezing level, although it also showed a lack of any temperature inversion to cap off the onshore flow and marine layer, so any clouds that arrived or formed would be free to lift upward along the Mountain. And that's pretty much exactly what the weather and clouds did all day, another win for the UW model and a strike against the overly pessimistic NWS forecast.



Skinned up from Paradise at 10am under mostly sunny skies, watching the progress of Chris Davenport's Cascade Volcano Tour, which was on its 14th volcano ski since May 5 (see http://blog.spyder.com/ or http://blog.spyder.com/tagged/volcanotour for reports). Their group of 7 had started at 4:30am from the massive Land Yacht parked at Paradise, and were now barely visible (with sharp eyes or a long zoom lens) above the top of Fuhrer Finger near 11500 ft. They would eventually summit a few hours later.


Seven tiny specks, traversing from Wapowety Cleaver across the upper Nisqually above 13000 ft.

Clouds came and went, with whiteout conditions at times, then clearing to full sunshine, then more clouds. In general, clouds were thickest between 7000-9000 ft all day, but did occasionally boil up to just over 10000 ft, while the upper mountain remained above the clouds all day.



Helicopter supply operations were ongoing all day, with numerous long-line loads being transported up to Camp Muir and Ingraham Flats using HiLine Helicopters' Hughes 500D #N8612F (Tony Reece's company based in Darrington, see the
, and

We reached Camp Muir around 1:30pm, were warned by the rangers to stay clear of the helicopter landing zone, and decided to head up Cowlitz Cleaver to the top of AAA Gully near 10400 ft. Generally light winds under 10 mph with temps in the upper-20s F, but the occasional SW breeze was quite chilly. Looking across at Cathedral Gap, it had almost melted out at one spot over the previous 4 days (and Cadaver Gap was already a mess of bare ground and many open crevasses), so the Ingraham Direct route will shortly have a small discontinuity without snow.



We had planned to ski the Cowlitz Glacier, but the ongoing cloudiness made us reconsider. No point in needlessly navigating a crevassed glacier in a whiteout. Skied down the south-facing AAA Gully just before 2:30pm, during a relative break in the clouds below. It was well-softened corn, but a bit too textured to be great skiing.



Down lower, the right (west) edge of the Muir Snowfield was pretty good skiing, well-consolidated corn but fairly rough above 9000 ft, becoming much smoother below that and very nice skiing.



The entrance to Nisqually Chute was still within the cloud deck, and we knew it was skied out and full of avy debris, so we opted to continue lower and ski the NW-facing slope down onto the Nisqually below Pebble Creek which I had skied on Sunday. Just excellent smooth corn on this slope, almost 1000 vert of sweet turns down to the glacier. The run down the Nisqually Glacier was really good too, well-consolidated smooth corn snow, and only slightly sticky in a few spots, mostly just great fun wide-open GS turns.



Stickier and slower snow on the flats below the glacier terminus. It was still continuously skiable to the bridge along the left side (totally melted out on the right bank), but just barely at one spot beside the river near 4100 ft, where a narrow finger of snow was all that remained for a few feet.



The ramp on the left side angling up to the SE end of the bridge was no longer continuous snow, but still possible to ski up without skins all the way to the road with some contortions through the tangle of slide alder on the ramp and stepping gingerly across several bare sections.


Yes, I skied through all of that.


View from bridge: It's looking bare, but the entire left bank of the river (right side of photo) was still easily skiable.

James quickly got a ride up to Paradise to get his car, then came back to get me and our gear, and then we headed back to Paradise to visit the Land Yacht and meet the Volcano Tour group. They had skied from the summit via Fuhrer Finger and angled back up from Nisqually Glacier out to Paradise, but reported that snow conditions were not good on the upper mountain, frozen as expected given the low freezing level, and heavily tracked out in the Finger. The worst skiing of their trip by far, the first day they had anything other than good-to-great corn snow. It was nice to meet their group, that's a burly feat to ski so many major volcanoes in such a short period (Chris Davenport and Jess McMillan have done all 14 volcanoes so far, about 70,000 vertical feet and 130 miles in 13 days, including 2 rest days), in mostly good style without too much snowmobile assist on the approaches or any helicopter drops or whatever. They mentioned that they had looked at my website a lot for planning, which put a sheepish smile on my face. It's nice to see the Cascade volcanoes getting some positive exposure and press nationally.



All in all, it was an unexpectedly outstanding day of skiing for us in potentially marginal weather. About 6500 vert of ski descent for only 5000 ft of gain, and most of the turns were on pretty good corn snow. And nice to get one of the last few days that are skiable out to the Nisqually Bridge this season, my 4th time skiing out to the bridge since early April, the most times I've ever done that in any year so far.



[tt]MOUNT RAINIER RECREATIONAL FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
319 AM PDT THU MAY 17 2012

SYNOPSIS...ONSHORE FLOW AND AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH WILL LEAD TO COOLER WEATHER AND CLOUDS AT TIMES THROUGH FRIDAY. WEAK HIGH PRESSURE WILL BRING DRY AND SOMEWHAT WARMER WEATHER SATURDAY. WETTER WEATHER WILL DEVELOP EARLY NEXT WEEK AS A SERIES OF FRONTS MOVE THROUGH.

THURSDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 5500 FEET.
THURSDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 5000 FEET.
FRIDAY...PARTLY SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 3500 FEET.
FRIDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 5000 FEET.
SATURDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY. FREEZING LEVEL 7000 FEET.
SATURDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY. FREEZING LEVEL 8500 FEET.
SUNDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW. SNOW LEVEL 7000 FEET.
SUNDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW. SNOW LEVEL 9000 FEET.
MONDAY...RAIN AND SNOW LIKELY. SNOW LEVEL 7000 FEET.
MONDAY NIGHT...RAIN LIKELY AND A CHANCE OF SNOW. SNOW LEVEL 7000 FEET.
TUESDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHT...SHOWERS LIKELY. SNOW LEVEL 6000 FEET.
WEDNESDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 4000 FEET.

TEMPERATURE AND WIND FORECASTS FOR SELECTED LOCATIONS.

                       THU    THU    FRI    FRI    SAT 
                            NIGHT         NIGHT       

SUMMIT   (14411 FT)      7      7      6      9     14
                      W 25  NW 53  NW 26  NW 11   W 18

CAMP MUIR(10188 FT)     22     20     20     21     25
                      W 17  NW 32  NW 15   N  3   S  7

PARADISE  (5420 FT)     49     27     44     28     54
                     SW  4  SW  8  SW  7  NW  6  NW  2

LONGMIRE  (2700 FT)     57     35     52     35     63
                     SE  6   W  7   W  4   N  3   N  1

++ TEMPERATURES AND WIND FOR THE SUMMIT AND CAMP MUIR ARE AVERAGE
   CONDITIONS EXPECTED IN THE FREE AIR AT THOSE ELEVATIONS.
++ TEMPERATURES FOR PARADISE AND LONGMIRE ARE THE EXPECTED HIGHS AND
   LOWS. WIND IS THE AVERAGE WIND EXPECTED DURING THAT PERIOD.
[/tt]

author=Jeff Huber link=topic=24819.msg104915#msg104915 date=1337408709">
"in good style without any snowmobile assist on the approaches or helicopter drops or whatever."

They did have snowmobile assistance at least out of the Three Sisters and possible in too. Davenport states they received snowmobile assistance out here. They may have had assistance in too as their mileage is shorter than I get with Topo based on how close you could get to Pole Creek TH the day they did the tour. In addition they were doing the traverse with the owner of Three Sisters Backcountry, a known heavy snowmobile user.

Also on Mt Hood, they took a snow cat to the top of Palmer.

They've made several amusing errors. They misspelled Thielsen on the back of the monster sign on the RV spelling it ThielsON. 

They have several captions wrong on their photos. Here they call the East side of Middle Sister the East side of North Sister.

And here they confuse Diamond Lake and Crater Lake in their captions!

Showing how the entire thing is a stunt - when they skied Hood (via Cooper Spur) one in their party, Asit Rathod, took off all his clothes on the summit and skied Cooper Spur naked. And in his recap about the day he says that Jess McMillan said at lunch, "I’m really happy about being drunk right now."

Also on McLoughlin Jess McMillan reports they got lost, and that Davenport complained about difficult navigation and lack of “beta."

Davenport promotes himself as a professional ski mountaineer and not all of what's been done is what I'd expect from a professional ski mountaineer, especially one that promotes himself so heavily. Then again, it's been amusing to watch.



Yeah, you're right, I missed the Sisters snowmobile assist, although it's still an impressive day trip to do the entire traverse. I'll fix that sentence to be more accurate.

It was good that they didn't (appear) to use a snowmobile on Adams, though, which had a very long approach at this time, a huge day trip.  And I've skied Hood several times using the lifts to the top of Palmer, as well as skinning up that part -- many use an assist there. Overall, it's been a substantially human-powered effort from trailheads to summits compared to many such sponsored trips, although obviously it's not intended to be so in between the volcanoes.

I noticed the photo caption errors and spelling errors you point out too, but that's relatively minor. As far as Rathod skiing Hood naked, that seems to be his trademark, and something he's done numerous times previously, so it's not really a stunt specific to this trip.

Seems that a lot of people really dislike (even hate) Chris Davenport, including some of my friends. I'm not sure why their feelings are so strong. It doesn't seem (to me) that his level of self-promotion is overly excessive relative to his ski mountaineering accomplishments. Many in that game (sponsored ski athletes) are certainly far worse than he is in that regard.


Sour grapes.

Self-promotion is just not as shocking anymore as you would want us to believe. Chris is out busting his but trying to make a living at what he loves to do. More power to him.


Man, I feel like I missed out on skiing this week Amar! Looks like fun out there.

BTW, I for one think Chris, et al pulled off a pretty awesome trip. What they did isn't easy no matter who you are. Unlike as you suggested in your earlier post Jeff, I'm sure you would agree that you don't need to be a rando racer to be a good ski mountaineer.

Yo Jeff,

I'm sure that if you went to the Adirondacks any number of skiers would make you look like a fool... on their home turf.

Self-promo seems full of problems, let the self-promoters dig their own holes... as they usually do.

Be patient!

Hey Jeff,
You have 748 posts on this website alone and your username is your first and last name.  Who is the self-promoter?

Hello all.
I have been around TAY for years and as you can tell I do not post much. As a member of the TAY Professional Lurkers Club (TAYPLC), I am very concerned about the personal shots that seem to be more and more prevalent on TAY these last few months. The thing that has always separated this community from other boards is the focus on skiing and limited snarkiness that can sneak up on any of us at times.

If you feel the need to take personal shots please just walk away from the keyboard and come back and write what you wanted to the right way (Yes, there is a right way). I shouldn't have a bad taste in my mouth reading about my own trip.

Thanks.

author=JCR link=topic=24819.msg104946#msg104946 date=1337531182]
Hello all.
I have been around TAY for years and as you can tell I do not post much. As a member of the TAY Professional Lurkers Club (TAYPLC), I am very concerned about the personal shots that seem to be more and more prevalent on TAY these last few months. The thing that has always separated this community from other boards is the focus on skiing and limited snarkiness that can sneak up on any of us at times.

If you feel the need to take personal shots please just walk away from the keyboard and come back and write what you wanted to the right way (Yes, there is a right way). I shouldn't have a bad taste in my mouth reading about my own trip.

Thanks.


Thanks JCR, well said.  Please avoid making the argument about the poster.

Hey everyone,

Join us at Sturtevants this Tuesday night to help celebrate Jess and Chris' awesome feat. Also, super proud that our 18 y.o. athlete, Andrew Eckels, was the last initials added to the back of the Spyder rig, right before they departed from the old Glacier "Chando" rv lot. The Mt. Baker Trip was perfect with sun, low wind, and and most of all seeing Chris, Jess, Ted, Christy & Ian all with HUGE smiles on all of their faces yesterday as they ripped high speed GS turns down the last 4,000 feet of awesome corn that lead us to Grouse Creek! They loved our N.Cascade playground and will back for sure (they did a tour out towards Coleman Pinnacle two days ago so they could check out all of the goods found from the Mt. Baker ski area.


Original post removed.

author=jesski link=topic=24819.msg105015#msg105015 date=1337648935]


I'm really curious how you're supposed to share with Mr. Davenport what a little bit of lurking on any trip report site will tell you-- that several women have skied Rainier in a day.

It's unfortunate that there are no means by which to sate his curiosity (such as enabled comments, email links, etc.) save commenting on other forums, such as this one.


OCCUPY Sturtevants!

"Join us at Sturtevants this Tuesday night to help celebrate Jess and Chris' awesome feat."

Or hit up the downtown Seattle hotel where the crazy RV was parked this morning.  Climbing volcanoes is nothing, that RV driver has the mad skills:

author=jesski link=topic=24819.msg105015#msg105015 date=1337648935">
It's unfortunate that there are no means by which to sate his curiosity (such as enabled comments, email links, etc.) save commenting on other forums, such as this one.


You can try meeting him at his own favorite social media - Twitter. His username is @SteepSkiing. Although he doesn't seem to like feedback as when I corrected his captions, spelling, and told him Thielsen wasn't the only non-skiable summit in the Cascades (another insane thing he said), I stopped being able to see his tweets unless I logged out.

"Or hit up the downtown Seattle hotel where the crazy RV was parked this morning.  Climbing volcanoes is nothing, that RV driver has the mad skills"

I agree! I'm impressed they found a parking spot big enough for it in downtown Seattle - Davenport should start claiming that as a first too!

(I considered writing this post as a personal message to Jeff only, but have decided to post it openly instead in this thread, since others who post on TAY may benefit from taking to heart my main point below.)

Jeff, when I wrote my reply to you above (reply #2 in this thread) and posted it at 1am Saturday, it was done in a huge rush and not really complete, because I had my alarm set for 4:30am to leave for Rainier to teach at the Glacier Skiing & Crevasse Rescue field trip. I just wanted to post something quickly, since you had made your initial post just before midnight, and once I saw it, I could not leave it sitting uncommented upon while I was out of town for the entire weekend.

One of the things that I really do want to say is this, which I hope you already realize without me having to say it:  your turning this trip report into a commentary on Chris Davenport is extremely inappropriate, and personally quite rude towards me. We've known each other since 2005, skied some summits together, and I would expect a much higher standard of collegial conduct from you towards me than what you have shown here.

It's certainly fine for anyone to point out errors in my TR (if done nicely and respectfully), and I welcome that since I want my reports to be accurate and free of errors. But everything else you wrote in your first post (other than the first paragraph pointing out the snowmo assist on Three Sisters) and much of your subsequent posts is highly inappropriate and unwelcome. My TR is not about Chris Davenport, and we did not ski with him on his Rainier descent. My TR is a report on conditions on the route which James and I skied, along with commentary on various interesting things which we observed that day, including 7 people high up on the Fuhrer Finger route heading for the summit during a marginal weather window and the helicopter supply operations.

It is completely inappropriate for you to turn this TR into your personal commentary (almost attack) thread on Chris Davenport. Everything other than the first paragraph of your first post should have been posted in a separate thread in Random Tracks, not in my TR. You certainly wouldn't want me or anyone else derailing any of your TRs in this manner, would you?

As always, I don't hold grudges, Jeff, and I'm willing to let it go with an apology, hoping that we'll remain on good terms and will even perhaps ski together again in the future. Thanks for listening.


author=Amar Andalkar link=topic=24819.msg105036#msg105036 date=1337666166]
As always, I don't hold grudges, Jeff, and I'm willing to let it go with an apology, hoping that we'll remain on good terms and will even perhaps ski together again in the future.


I would enjoy that too! It definitely wasn’t my intent to be disrespectful to you or inappropriately derail your TR, and I am sorry it came across that way. I do have a lot of respect for you and didn’t mean to cause any offense. Your TR was really neat with the helicopter photos and getting to descend to the bridge.

I’ll not comment further on Davenport in this thread and if you’d like I would be fine with my posts being either removed or split into their own thread. 

Just in the interest of creating shared dialogue on the subject of TR responses - I honestly wouldn’t mind if one of my TRs was turned into commentary on a tangentially related topic if my TR touches on a polarizing subject or issue. However, at the same time I can understand if a TR author wants their TRs to stay on subject or avoid what could be interpreted as negative commentary, and I want to respect those who want this and will refrain from such a hijack in the future.

Nicely done grievance/criticism and reception/acceptance.  Thanks.

author=Jeff Huber link=topic=24819.msg105037#msg105037 date=1337672977]
I would enjoy that too! It definitely wasn’t my intent to be disrespectful to you or inappropriately derail your TR, and I am sorry it came across that way. I do have a lot of respect for you and didn’t mean to cause any offense. Your TR was really neat with the helicopter photos and getting to descend to the bridge.

I’ll not comment further on Davenport in this thread and if you’d like I would be fine with my posts being either removed or split into their own thread. 


Thanks, Jeff. It's nice to resolve this amicably. I'm OK with Marcus leaving the thread as is, it's already done.


author=Jeff Huber link=topic=24819.msg105037#msg105037 date=1337672977]
Just in the interest of creating shared dialogue on the subject of TR responses - I honestly wouldn’t mind if one of my TRs was turned into commentary on a tangentially related topic if my TR touches on a polarizing subject or issue. However, at the same time I can understand if a TR author wants their TRs to stay on subject or avoid what could be interpreted as negative commentary, and I want to respect those who want this and will refrain from such a hijack in the future.


I also wouldn’t mind if one of my TRs were turned into commentary on a tangentially related topic, as long as the polarizing subject or issue in the TR was something to do with my own (or my party's) conduct or style of travel on the trip (i.e. perhaps travelling unroped on glaciers or other risk taking in steep terrain, or avy-related stuff, even observing illegal snowmobiles, etc.). If I post an honest or frank TR online (as mine generally are), then I think I have to be willing to accept commentary and even sharp criticism of my and my party's actions on the trip, otherwise I shouldn't be posting it online at all.

My main issue with what happened in this thread is that the derailing commentary was all about another party's conduct on and off the mountain, whose trip on Rainier was included as a mere anecdote within my TR. That is the crux of why I felt it was inappropriate, especially the continued sharp criticism of that other party -- the thread had derailed entirely into only commentary and criticism of that other party.


Thanks guys -- Amar, sorry your thread got derailed here.

Amidst all the hate, I was surprised no one mentioned the gratuitous slideshow promos in there! LOL

And now, back to your regularly scheduled trip reports....

Hello Everyone,.
This is the first time I have posted on any forum in many years.  The comments of Jeff Huber, the man who publicly called me a "Gaper" at the beginning of my volcano road trip, have left a very bad taste in my mouth and are a sad example of a side of the ski community that unfortunately seems to exist online.  Jeff I'll throw it out there right now- I'd be happy to go skiing with you any time.  I love the sport and it's my life and my families.  I pride myself on my reputation and my integrity, which is why these comments are somewhat hurtful.

So Jeff, please allow me to answer some of your concerns:

As a professional skier and mountain guide with a long record of safe climbs and ski descents with clients around the world, I pride myself on being as transparent, humble, safe, and forthright as possible.  I first would like to apologize for the spelling errors in my posts and the confusion on a few of the photo captions that you mention.  Those were inexcusable and all I can say is the were a product of exhausted, late-night writing en-route to our next peak.

I'm not sure where you get off saying that I was claiming "Firsts" or "Eliteness" or "Super human endurance"?  This is really just plain hate isn't it?  I never claimed anything of the sort on this trip, or ever, and certainly don't have any endurance beyond the norm.  We gathered some friends and went on a road trip and skied some very cool mountains.  That is it.

Regarding snowmobiles:  We did get picked up on the Cascades Lake Highway for the long, flat cruise back to the Sno-Park near Bachelor.  We were tired after a long traverse of the Sisters and were grateful for the ride, as well as the chocolate milk that the driver had brought us.  This was the ONLY snowmachine ride we had the entire trip.  We began the day with my guide friend Dave Marchi driving us out to Pole Creek TH.

Yes, we did take a snowcat on Hood up the Palmer.  A local friend and long time Hood skier (and friend of Amar's) had organized that for the group of 14 people the had gathered to ski Cooper Spur together.  Regarding his naked descent- if you don''t think that is funny you would have been the only one there that day who thought so.

Regarding the question of the one-day ascent of Rainier:  I certainly know people do that with some frequency.  It's really not that hard. As I said in my blog, I was simply curious if anyone knew if any women had?  Well you guys seem to know the answer so I'd be happy if you'd let me know their names.  I know my girl partners would love to meet other female skiers with similar ambitions.  I look forward to hearing from you JessSki.

And Jeff, regarding your comments about Andrew McLean, Doug Coombs, and Mark Newcomb:  Doug was one of my mentors early on in my career and I was with him for two weeks before he died working on the film "Steep".  Maybe you have seen it.  Doug did the "pro-skier" gig just like everyone else, TGR Films, photo-shoots, appearances at shops to sign posters, ect...he just did it before social media.  And Andrew makes a living off of self-promotion, so makes sure to go visit his site and click through the plethora of affiliate marketing links so he can get paid.  and Mark is a professional guide so why should he be promoting his trips or exploits?  I have skied and worked with all of these guys and they are all friends.  RIP Doug.

Again, it's a shame your online community allows this shit to happen.  We had a wonderful ski trip with many friends, old and new, in your beautiful NW mountains.  I look forward to coming back next season to ski with folks I met and to visit some more new zones.  I hope I run into many of you along the way.

May skiing take you to the most wonderful places.,
Chris Davenport
(Sorry Marcus)

Chris, I'm sorry that my trip report thread was used as a venue for criticism and comments which were hurtful. I appreciate you coming online here to openly address that criticism, but I wish that had not been necessary. It looks like Jeff has now deleted 4 of his posts in the thread above, which contained most of the negative comments.

I still think your trip was impressive, as do most of the people I've spoken with about it, and I was really glad to have crossed paths and met you on Rainier that day. Despite doing Cascade volcano road trips every year since 1999 (several long road trips some years), I've certainly never skied as many of the Cascade volcanoes during any single road trip. I think I've managed 9 or so a couple of times, but not even close to 15 -- it's something to aspire to in the future. Definitely jealous also of the amazing weather window and excellent corn snow you enjoyed for most of your trip, it's too bad that this week's strong storm cycle prevented a Glacier Peak attempt.

Hope that your future visits to the Cascades and the Northwest will not leave any bad taste, only positive memories.


Mr. Davenport,
First and formost, welcome to this great site! I must apologize for the behavior of this Jeff H. guy. Every crop seems to have a few bad apples...
It has been a great pleasure to watch your mountain exploits, from the early days of stomping huge drops, flashing AK lines, and now your ski mountainerring. (Your Denali trip, gave inspiration to a few good mutual  friends of ours Miss. Walker and J. Florence, who are flying in, as we speak).
So keep up the great work and maybe post a few of your rad trips on TAY sometime.

Amar, Your trip reports are as always chalked full of useful information, Thanks!
Sincerely from the OTHER Jeff, ~Jeff R.

Just do everyone a favor and lock this thread. The TR isn't relevant to current conditions anyway and it's just going to turn into a Dav love/hate festival. There's a thread in Random Tracks if you want to be a fan boy or a hater. Take the same approach you did for the Baker snomo issue (recommending a thread in Random Tracks rather than derailing yet another Baker thread was an excellent idea).

Hey Chris,

I posted some comments that were in bad taste when you were on your "Ski the 14ers" project.  They were based on misguided egotism and jealousy; I'm sorry.  It seems like you have great taste when it comes to doing nothing but a bunch of awesome skiing all over the world (while somehow making ends meet).  I hope to run into you again out there some day.

Cheers,
Sky

*****

Way to get another run to the bridge, Amar.  It's a feat I have yet to enjoy myself.

On a completely,it would seem unrelated topic to this post, thanks for the link about Tony, (the helicopter). I have worked with Tony for years, and did not know about these exploits.  He is such a modest man of course, he would never toot his own horn.  Over the years I have worked/ridden with hundreds of pilots, and he stands head and shoulders above the rest.  His longline work is particularly impressive, things that even a very skilled pilot would find difficult, Tony makes look routine, all while putting safety first. Everyone I know worries that someday he really will retire, and it will make a huge hole in the NW flying community.

author=Cdav link=topic=24819.msg105128#msg105128 date=1337838854]
  Jeff I'll throw it out there right now- I'd be happy to go skiing with you any time.  I love the sport and it's my life and my families. 


Class... I mean, WORLD Class.

I just wanted to know "Does the snow still go to the bridge?"  And (as usual) Amar delivers what those inquiring minds want to know.

Original post removed.

Nice post Jessie.

Probably obvious to many who have spent time skiing out here, but there is really no question of whether it was done in a day before by a woman. I don't really want to get into some kind of contest about who did what first, and I'm not sure that many of the women I know would appreciate being pulled into a petty argument. Without doing any actual research, off the top of my head, the first to have done this (that I know of) was probably Lisa G in Summer ’08,


Back in 2006 the late Monika Johnson posted a TR of skiing it within 24 hours:
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=5044.msg21304#msg21304

She states it was easier than she expected.

I must clarify that my ski off the summit was in the first week of June 1998  or 1997, I can't remember, but not '08. It was the first year Dee began working at Schurman so that would clarify which year. I skied it with David Gottlieb and the late Joe Puryear

It was not done in a day. I left White river by myself with no tent hoping to reach the Schurman hut and ski with the guys. A rain storm moved in and had me drenched mid way up Interglacier. To find shelter from the storm I began to did a snowcave and just had enough space to get out of the pouring rain while continuing to dig deeper. While still at work on my digging my friends Joe and David came upon me on their hike up to camp for their weekend duty. I will never forget the yellow Moonstone outfits they wore and Joe was rocking away with headphones and his brilliant smile that he always had. They had day packs at the time, already having gear placed at the hut.

David grabbed some of my gear to speed things up and they left climbing while I continued skinning. I'll  never forget reaching the hut and David had gone through some of my stuff sacs and was commenting on my food and how I was now to share it as he carried it.  :)

We had a snowstorm that night that left a 4 foot snowdrift at the door of the hut when we got up to rally. David called the Muir rangers at roughly 7:00 or so and laughingly said isn't it great on this side, we don't have to leave early.

We left at 10:00 a.m. reaching the summit at 3:00. David carried his snowboard on his back and Joe had alpine ski gear on his pack. I was the only one trying to skin until I donned crampons at roughly 12k or so because I could not keep up with Joe in the lead.

It was a fantastic ski at the time except that my Karhu Bardini skis and Rainy Super Loop bindings were a bit antiquated by today's standard for ripping it up in style.

The mountain may very well have been skied off the summit by a woman before myself. I don't know but would not be surprised. Maybe Lowell has some data.

I feel today's gear and the influence of the internet and ski mountaineering has made it much more appealing. Even as if it's not really a big mountain anymore, just a long ski. Hmmm. Technology really can change the way we view things.

I will say that it really is not important to me how fast a ski/climb is done. It is about the people we are with and the memories we share. I know some folks feel it is about your pace and how strong you are, how fast you can pull it off.

To me it has never and will never be about more than sharing the mountains with friends. I am grateful to have spent the few years I did on Rainier with Joe, Mike and Dave. I am grateful to have known Joe in his short life here. I am not out to compete and show others up. That's just me, there is no race to the top, only memories to last your lifetime.

*fixed the link - marcus*

author=Lisa link=topic=24819.msg105390#msg105390 date=1338343968]
The mountain may very well have been skied off the summit by a woman before myself. I don't know but would not be surprised. Maybe Lowell has some data.


Dee Molenaar's latest edition of The Challenge of Rainier has information about the first ski descent of the mountain by a woman. She was Erline Reber of Yakima, who skied from the summit on August 5, 1962. There is a nice photo of her on page 208 of the book. The book also says she made the first women's ski descent of Mount St. Helens. Her accomplishments were made more noteworthy by the fact that she was born without fingers on her right hand.

I have very little information about historic skiing by women in the Cascades. There aren't many written records. I would be happy to receive more information.

Lisa, wonderful comment!

Lisa thanks for your comments.

author=Lisa link=topic=24819.msg105390#msg105390 date=1338343968">
I must clarify that my ski off the summit was in the first week of June 1998  or 1997, I can't remember, but not '08. It was the first year Dee began working at Schurman so that would clarify which year. I skied it with David Gottlieb and the late Joe Puryear

It was not done in a day. I left White river by myself with no tent hoping to reach the Schurman hut and ski with the guys. A rain storm moved in and had me drenched mid way up Interglacier. To find shelter from the storm I began to did a snowcave and just had enough space to get out of the pouring rain while continuing to dig deeper. While still at work on my digging my friends Joe and David came upon me on their hike up to camp for their weekend duty. I will never forget the yellow Moonstone outfits they wore and Joe was rocking away with headphones and his brilliant smile that he always had. They had day packs at the time, already having gear placed at the hut.

David grabbed some of my gear to speed things up and they left climbing while I continued skinning. I'll  never forget reaching the hut and David had gone through some of my stuff sacs and was commenting on my food and how I was now to share it as he carried it.  :)

We had a snowstorm that night that left a 4 foot snowdrift at the door of the hut when we got up to rally. David called the Muir rangers at roughly 7:00 or so and laughingly said isn't it great on this side, we don't have to leave early.

We left at 10:00 a.m. reaching the summit at 3:00. David carried his snowboard on his back and Joe had alpine ski gear on his pack. I was the only one trying to skin until I donned crampons at roughly 12k or so because I could not keep up with Joe in the lead.

It was a fantastic ski at the time except that my Karhu Bardini skis and Rainy Super Loop bindings were a bit antiquated by today's standard for ripping it up in style.

The mountain may very well have been skied off the summit by a woman before myself. I don't know but would not be surprised. Maybe Lowell has some data.

I feel today's gear and the influence of the internet and ski mountaineering has made it much more appealing. Even as if it's not really a big mountain anymore, just a long ski. Hmmm. Technology really can change the way we view things.

I will say that it really is not important to me how fast a ski/climb is done. It is about the people we are with and the memories we share. I know some folks feel it is about your pace and how strong you are, how fast you can pull it off.

To me it has never and will never be about more than sharing the mountains with friends. I am grateful to have spent the few years I did on Rainier with Joe, Mike and Dave. I am grateful to have known Joe in his short life here. I am not out to compete and show others up. That's just me, there is no race to the top, only memories to last your lifetime.

*fixed the link - marcus*

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may-17-2012-mt-rainier-muir-to-nisqually-bridge
Amar Andalkar
2012-05-18 15:32:45