TR - Mowich Face Revisited
Andrew McLean
(WA) and myself (UT) thought it would be a good time to try skiing the
Centr.... er, uhmmmm, a still unskied line on Mt. Rainier's Mowich face over
the July 24th weekend.
I drove up (12 hours from SLC) and met Mark at the airport. We then drove
up through Wilkerson, where we registered like good little campers at the
Red Caboose Ranger Station, then continued on and met Armond at the Mowich
Lake Trailhead. Unfortunately, this time the gate was really locked, so we
pulled out all of our gear and started to pack just as the rain really
started to come down. Not to be deterred (but having forgotten a few things
in our excited hurry to walk the extra 5 miles up the dirt road - yippy) we
started the long trudge. The road really wasn't that bad and they could
have easily opened about four miles of it. There was about 3' of snow right
around the base of Mowich Lake, but the trail all the way up to Spray Park
was fine. We ditched our tennis shoes right by Mowich Lake and regretted it
for the next 3 miles of trailwalking, which we did in our ski boots.
We camped right at the entrance to Spray Park, mainly because we had already
walked about 8-9 miles, we were soaking wet and had hardly had any sleep.
And because it was getting dark. As it was only lightly raining at that
point, I put on a down jacket and was immediately reminded of Lowell's post
on how to stay dry in the NW. Down wasn't on the recommended list. The
image of cold, wet toilet paper came to mind.
The next morning broke clear and sunny, so we aired all of our gear out
while demonstrating to Armond that coffee isn't lethal in huge quantities.
Fully wired, we cruised through the rolling hills of Spray Park, then
climbed up onto Ptarmigan Ridge where we got a full view of the Mowich Face.
"It looks like it's covered with blue ice." said Armond. "Hmmmm, yeah.
Maybe it's just the way the sun is hitting it." we countered with, then
proceeded to surf loose scree for about 1,000' all the way down to the
Mowich Glacier.
The crevasses were in pretty good shape - very obvious and with strong snow
bridges. We roped up and crossed over to Needle Rock, then swung around and
climbed up the North (?) Mowich Glacier to about the 9,200' level where we
found our old campsite from a couple of years ago. After a bit more
excavation, we had a nice flat platform on which we set up the deluxe Bibler
Bombshelter with the door strategically oriented to watch the sun sets over
the Olympics.
The next morning we set out across a very broken up glacier to the base of
the Central Mowich Headwall. This went pretty quickly with only a bit of
backtracking and some skirting around the edges on loose rock, but
eventually we emerged on the central snowfields, which were, surprise (!)
blue ice. Armond decided to call it quits at the "Hole in the rock" (a very
cool natural arch located on the ridgeline), but Mark and I were more
optimistic. "I bet we're just on a patch here and it's better up higher."
So, we continued up with crampons, one ice tool and one Whippet self arrest
grip apiece. The ice was, well, quite icy, and quite continuous, which is
hard to overcome with even big doses of optimism. About 2/3rds of the way
up the wall, we traversed out underneath a huge rock sickle, then had to
wrap around a very steep little frozen drift and clamp onto the face, which
of course was solid ice. As the expose was approaching the Gob Smacking
level (just under Mind Numbing) we would drive the ice tools as hard as
possible, wiggle them loose, snuggle the self arrest pick into the hole,
then pull the tool out and place it higher. This worked pretty well, but was
slow.
We eventually made it to Sunset Ridge, where we climbed 8" tall sustrugi all
the way up to Liberty Cap. As Mark had never been to the summit of Rainier,
we dropped down, crossed the open snowfield and continued to the windy
summit for about .1432 seconds. After a brief lunch of GU and nuts, we put
our skis on, shot back across the snowfield, climbed back up to Liberty Cap
and side slipped down to the top of the Mowich, which was still blue ice.
Hmmm. We debated about downclimbing, trying to belay each other and a few
other tactics before deciding to "just try one turn." Knowing that a skier
had died a few weeks earlier on his first icy turn down the nearby Liberty
Ridge, it was a very tentative turn. "Not so good." We decided to traverse
way out towards the Edmonds Headwall and see if we could sneak down far
enough to traverse back towards the center line, but to no avail - it was
just too dicey. But, the snow over on the Edmonds seemed OK and as I'd
skied it before, I knew what to expect and where to go. We downclimbed a
bit to get off the ridge, then put our skis back on and made some turns. At
first it went pretty well. Then, within one turn, we were back in the
middle of a huge ice field. We started slowly sidestepping down, then after
a while that got too scary, so we broke out the ice axes and kind of side
stepped while placing the picks as we went down. It took an incredibly long
time to cover about 1,200' of vertical, but the photos should be worth it.
Eventually, we found that the margins right next to the rocks had some
softer snow, so we opted for hitting the occasional rock versus the patches
of ice and worked our way down. Finally setting edges on the mellow glacier
was quite a relief. Slightly shell shocked, we skied back to camp and tore
into our meager Scotch supply.
The next day was the third clear day in a row. We skied back down the
glaciers unroped, then roped up to cross a few major cracks. This deposited
us at the base of the dreaded Ptarmigan Ridge Screefest, which wasn't as bad
as we had anticipated. Once this was done, we had a nice ride all the way
through Spray Park, where we met the only and only person we saw on the
trip - a Ranger.
The trail out through the woods wasn't bad, but the dirt road seemed to go
on forever. When we finally made it home, one of the first things we did wa
s to weigh our packs - Mark came in at 80lbs and I was a measly 70.
We used TOPO! generated maps and waypoints for the entire trip and had great
success with them as you can create custom maps, GPS waypoints and lots of
annotated details on your specific route (halfway points, elevation
milestones, close up summit day maps, overall maps, driving maps, etc..)
Andrew
Mark Donohoe
>
> Lured by reports of a massive snow year, Mark Holbrook (UT), Armond Debque
> (WA) and myself (UT) thought it would be a good time to try skiing the
> Centr.... er, uhmmmm, a still unskied line on Mt. Rainier's Mowich face over
> the July 24th weekend.
... lots of neat stuff deleted...
Andrew,
Great trip report! Talk about blurring the boundry between
mountaineering
(or should that be ski mountaineering?) and skiing! You all might be in
line for the award for most hiking-least skiing of the year. I think
you should do at least one or more trips like this and then for sure
you will be ready for shitininmypantsma! :-) Are your sponsors going to
keep all the stories and photos? Or will we get to read about the
adventure
in climbing/R&I, couloir, backcountry? Any plans for current web
postings
while the trip is in progress?
Remember, otto wants you back.
Good climbing, skiing, and hiking with skis to you! :-).
---
Mark Donohoe (ma...@cup.hp.com)
Lowell Skoog
> ... eventually we emerged on the central snowfields, which were,
> surprise (!) blue ice.
I think those may be more normal conditions for late July than
what you found on the face a couple years ago. It seems like a
big snow year doesn't guarantee soft surface snow high on
Rainier. I heard second-hand reports from Rainier guides that
even though the lower mountain was buried by snow this season,
the upper mountain was not unusually well covered. Also, much
of the cloudy weather this spring was pretty weak marine-type
flow. I bet the upper part of Rainier got a fair bit of sunshine
during June, hardening the snow.
> Armond decided to call it quits at the "Hole in the rock" (a very
> cool natural arch located on the ridgeline), but Mark and I were
> more optimistic.
Gee, I thought Armond was the wild card last time, but this time
you and Mark made him seem like a paragon of good judgment. ;-)
> About 2/3rds of the way up the wall, we traversed out underneath
> a huge rock sickle, then had to wrap around a very steep little
> frozen drift and clamp onto the face, which of course was solid
> ice. As the expose was approaching the Gob Smacking level (just
> under Mind Numbing) we would drive the ice tools as hard as
> possible, wiggle them loose, snuggle the self arrest pick into
> the hole, then pull the tool out and place it higher. This worked
> pretty well, but was slow.
I think this is where the second ascent party (Sumner et al, July
4, 1967) belayed multiple pitches using ice screws.
> We started slowly sidestepping down, then after a while that got
> too scary, so we broke out the ice axes and kind of side stepped
> while placing the picks as we went down. It took an incredibly
> long time to cover about 1,200' of vertical, but the photos
> should be worth it.
You sure have interesting tastes in skiing, Andrew. Maybe the S
rating system should be extended to the double-S (for side-step)
system to cover descents like this.
> Slightly shell shocked, we skied back to camp and tore into our
> meager Scotch supply.
I hope you have better snow conditions for your next descent.
Tibet perhaps?
--Lowell Skoog
Seattle
Andrew McLean
>I think
>you should do at least one or more trips like this and then for sure
>you will be ready for shitininmypantsma! :-) Are your sponsors going to
>keep all the stories and photos? Or will we get to read about the
>adventure
>in climbing/R&I, couloir, backcountry?
Uhmmm, I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how the trip goes. When
magazines and/or film companies (Nova, Nat Geo, etc.) sponsor trips, they
usually like to have first rights to any stories or images.
>Any plans for current web postings while the trip is in progress?
We were on and off about this, but it looks like we won't have any at this
point. I don't know how much work they are to produce, but it has been
great to follow the Trango Tower ascent on Quokka.com.
Andrew
Andrew McLean
>Andrew McLean <and...@bdel.com> writes:
>
>> ... eventually we emerged on the central snowfields, which were,
>> surprise (!) blue ice.
>
>I think those may be more normal conditions for late July than
>what you found on the face a couple years ago. It seems like a
>big snow year doesn't guarantee soft surface snow high on
>Rainier. I heard second-hand reports from Rainier guides that
>even though the lower mountain was buried by snow this season,
>the upper mountain was not unusually well covered. Also, much
>of the cloudy weather this spring was pretty weak marine-type
>flow. I bet the upper part of Rainier got a fair bit of sunshine
>during June, hardening the snow.
Completely and totally by chance, as I was driving up to Rainier, I stopped
at a rest area just outside of Yakima at about 7:00am to sleep. There was
only one other car there, and it turned out to be Tyson Bradley from SLC,
who was just returning from skiing Rainier. He had also talked to some RMI
guides and had the same impression - tons of snow below 9,000' and blue ice
above.
>I think this is where the second ascent party (Sumner et al, July
>4, 1967) belayed multiple pitches using ice screws.
Ice screws? What are those?
>I hope you have better snow conditions for your next descent.
>Tibet perhaps?
That topic was brought up as we were slowly side stepping away - "If Shish
is like this, it's not going to happen." Usually, little patches of ice
aren't bad (assuming you know where they are from climbing up them) as you
can skirt them or rappel over them, but 1,000's of feet of it is pretty much
out of the question. You could always start rappelling, but at 200' per
shot, it would take forever. One major difference is that our Shish line is
a couloir, versus the Mowich, which is a huge face. Couloirs (at least in
theory) tend to hold a little more snow and aren't as wind blown.
Andrew
ps - the trash compactor bags are great!
Mark Simon
Nobody has ever known Armond to be the turning around type.
A friend and I came super close to trying that earlier in July. After
seeing ice and low snow cover high on the mountain even earlier we
decided not to go for it.
I'm glad we didn't, I've side stepped and rapped enough blue ice this year
already.
Good on ya.
Mark Simon