So a week ago, our team attempted to summit Little Tahoma for our grad climb, which meant a third trip to Mount Rainier National Park!
We rented another cabin on Friday night and got a somewhat early start on Saturday morning. Others had the same idea, and the path up to Muir was packed with skiers and boarders!
After hiking past the trails, we crossed over the Muir Snowfield, and met up with the Cowlitz Glacier just below Anvil Rock. We took a rest, scoped out our path through the crevasse field, and roped up. Jet and Will fine tuned the route
On Rope #2 with Amanda, Will, and Marc, with Little Tahoma in the background
Rope #1 went ahead to scout out the path across the field of crevasses
After we passed this serac, it was determined that we couldn’t cross this way… so we turned back to go around the obstacles…
This meant copious elevation gain…
…and walking around some other crevasses
Traversing that steep slope was tricky, but the snow was soft enough to make any self-arrest attempt easier than normal…
^Photo taken from a safe, and less steep spot…
We took another rest at the top of our detour, and then started down towards the Ingraham Glacier
There were some narrow crevasses and rock falls in this area, so we tried to move through quickly
^This could totally be an album cover. Our band would be Glacier Puzzle. We’d be so rad.
A glider!
Rope #1 decided to take the hard path to Ingraham
Ropes #2 and #3 crossed over via a low point in the Cathedral Rocks
…and took a snack break while the folks on Rope #1 made their way back up.
When we met up again, we scoped out Ingraham
and off we went!
Alex, Scott, Nicole and Leonard!
We eventually got to the south face of Little Tahoma, and Rope #1 went off to set protection on the climb over the ridge at 8600′. The plan was to camp on the Whitman Glacier an get an alpine start for the summit attempt
However, time went on, and they reported back that the rock wasn’t suitable for setting protection (at least at our levels)… Thus, we wouldn’t be pushing for the summit
Thus, we made camp, ate dinner, and watched the sun set
I woke up on my own around midnight, and decided to take some photos. You can see climbers heading up Disappointment Cleaver on their summit attempts!
The next morning, we had breakfast, milled around, and closed up shop…
The sun was low, the snow was a bit crustier, and great views were had on the return trip.
Such as this one on the Ingraham!
One last team photo with our snazzy new shirts!!!
