Tahoma Glacier Headwall

On 5/11/26, Conner Niemann and I went to check out the west side of Rainier, a place which has always been a mystery to the both of us. One of Conner's dream ski lines is the Sickle Couloir tucked away in the upper Tahoma Glacier (whose aesthetics I've now been sold on), but some Oregon folks gave it a go a couple days prior, reporting serac fall debris in the lower 2/3s of it. It would be doable, but not fun, so we leaned on the TR author's hindsight to ski the Tahoma Glacier Headwall instead.

Not too much to say about the climb, slog up to Camp Muir, the ID is in but the lower portion is getting more broken up, yadda yadda the usual. We pushed off the summit at 1:45pm and were on top of the headwall a little after 2pm. There were patches of ice getting to it but the conditions improved somewhat as we went down with firm yet smooth edgeable snow. I suppose we could have waited even longer but the snow wasn't going to soften up any more on this day than it already was.

Having done this now I think I can break it up into three parts: (1) getting onto the headwall, (2) picking a panel to ski, (3) getting off the headwall. Going into it we knew (1) and (3) would be the cruxes of the day. Tim Gibson and Lucas Cairns both have excellent videos of them skiing the line (wish I made it last year!) and it looked like there was a giant crevasse lip getting onto the headwall - we had no such issues. However we did have to diligently pick our way through the ice, with continuous patches of snow guiding us for the most part. I would think this part changes year to year and you could mainly go off intuition.

At 13000ft, you have the option of skiing two panels split by vertical cracks that consistently show up in historical late summer imagery (shout out to Google Earth, flip through the years if you have a chance!). It even shows up in the topo slightly: a narrower west facing panel, and larger panel just south of that with a bit more southerly tilt. We opted to ski the latter because it looked more open and not over/adjacent to the seracs guarding the Sickle, and frankly could use the extra bit of solar radiation on the face.

As we were skiing our panel and thinking about our egress, our exit slope was getting closer and closer and it was... BLUE?? I thought something was wrong with my sunglasses or maybe I was getting snow blindness. Sure enough at 12300ft, the slope we thought we would use to exit under the seracs to curve north was just pure blue ice - never seen anything like it. I noted a snow bridge where we were but skied down 30 more feet hoping to find some snow around the corner. Nope, more blue ice. We were not in the best resting spot at this point and had the option of either scooting over to the ice and rapping off of ice screws, or booting up and checking out the snow bridge. We did the latter and thankfully my intuition was right that it would link back up with the exit panel. Whew, that could've been a faff fest.

I suppose the last panel that you must get onto regardless of the two panels you chose earlier is still considered part of the headwall line, but it was a fun, steep face with great snow - a nice reprieve from being in the firing zone a couple minutes prior. Soon after we rejoined with all of the ski tracks from the Sickle folks, finding nice turns through the glued up glaciers and onto the rib at 10000ft. Then we enjoyed 4000 feet of absolutely smooth, perfect corn that never got manky - certainly one of the best corn runs of my life.

We put the trail runners on where the snow stopped and exited south to the Wonderland Trail and onto Tahoma Creek to save some mileage instead of taking the longer South Puyallup Trail. If I did this again I would go the "long" way because the creek bed was more boulder hoppy rather than the sand/pebbles I've come to expect to in this kind of landscape. It's nicer to have the brain off in this part of the outing. Overall a great day checking out the west throne of the mountain!

A topic I often think about is how much one should go exploring off on your own or lean on beta (especially with modern tools e.g. photos, videos, gpx, etc). For certain lines I believe having more information is better, especially when your health and well-being are on the line. Absolute respect to those who "poke around" going top down on serious terrain. Obviously the glaciers will change year to year but I imagine the problems regarding the exit will be a consistent crux one has to manage, so I hope this TR could help anyone going for it. The headwall would be pretty tame IF you had both great snow off the top and minimal crevasse hazards, but there are obviously tradeoffs depending on what part of the season you decide to go. I hope the next party gets it in great conditions!