Kautz & Fuhrer Finger Attempt on Rainier... in a Tropical Storm - May 20-21, 2012

This climb on Rainier was going to be different. We learned so much from our attempt on the Kautz headwall last August. Let's throw some cushion for time on both ends of the trip: a whole day for prep and travel at the beginning. Let's tack on several days on the end... just in case, you know, weather happened. There's no way we'd run out of time on the route this year. We severely underestimated that last bit, however, the weather.

The two weeks leading up to the climb was blue-bird skies. It pains me to think of my initial anticipation, watching those webcam shots of the beautifully clear mountain from Phoenix throughout my work day. Then came the forecast. There's going to be a fairly decent tropic storm moving into the region on Sunday, the day of our departure. We poured over as many forecast models as we could; everything seemed to reflect the same dooming inevitability. Okay, no problem. We go through our systems before hand. Print several maps, bring the compass, we're ready for route-finding in a whiteout. Treat the backpack and gloves with some extra water-repellent, pack a couple trash bag liners to preserve the dryness of our gear and we should be set. We've got all the gortex one could need, what could possibly go wrong?

Dave's take on the trip:

Pics below...

Our chariot for hire this trip: Dave's duelie beast of a truck.

First order of business: stock up on food stuffs. i.e. carb-load / protein-load / stuff face as much as possible

This would be the last time the contents of the bed of the truck would be without rain tarp.

Hey we're going to Rainier!

But first... Another order of business. Visit the grocery store. We would make a habit of this by the end of the trip.

One of the many lakes, this one just downstream of the Nisqually river.

Hagning out on the porch, meeting some of the mountain folk and sipping aptly-named brew. Can't get much better.

Some of the awesome landscape. Sigh. I could live in you, state of Washington.

Working on some of our bouldering form at the Whittaker Mountaineering hub. All the hand holds spun like well-lubricated bearings, so add that challenge to the difficulty factor and you've got some good potential for spraining ankles and wrists!

Thank you immensly to Mark's friend Carly who generously let us bum her room off her while she was on Mt. Rainier the same weekend! So sorry for how much stuff we brought into that place. The ladies who gave us the key promptly informed us that there's a strict firecode occupancy of 2 people max. We smooth-talked our way into them allowing us :-D

Dave could definitely pass as someone from the orient. All seven feet of him.

Myself and Mark getting fresh with the locals.

We opted to build our meals in the wonderful weather outdoors. If only the weather could've hung out one more day.

The last of the day's prep-work: Refilling fuel canisters and laying out clothes for the morning.

Day One of Misery

We had such high hopes of reaching the Castle at ~9400'. We settled for somewhere on the Wilson Glacier near 7600'?

Hey we're here

Like mice driving through the snow maze looking for cheese.
At right: This might be the last smile you see from any of us. Be forewarned.

After a savoring use of the facilities one last time before we're constricted to using a plastic bag (which we have to carry any and all contents around with us), we set out to load up our packs in the parking lot and head out. Apparently we arrived in time for the guide olympics taking part in some time trials of staged crevasse rescue.

Aye, they had so much promise going into it.

Aye, it's wet out here. Within an hour of starting, water was sloshing around in my boots, which I later found was due to my backpack channeling water down into my pant shell, which became uncovered by my top shell. Mmmm, soggy boots.

Crossing the Nisqually glacier. Mostly uneventful. It makes a huge difference crossing these things early in the season when there's still a ton of snow over the crevasses. Mark's in high spirits. Dave and I could really use a beer right now.

Yeah, we're still hanging in there for the most part.

Looking back at the usual entrance to the Wilson bench, known as the Fan. Instead we have to circle around this thing an find another route up

Hey, we're all still happy right? Haha, look at Dave's hard shell, just wetted-out with un-pleasantries.

Nay! This sucks! My gloves have already taken in so much water from the moisture running down my arms, within my shell. At the right is looking back across the glacier we just crossed. The wilson bench lies at the right. We have to find a way to get up that that isn't riddled with incessant rock fall hazard.

We just got to make it up around these seracs of hanging doom. While we climbed just past to the left, one of the hanging beasts released and crashed into the ground below, breaking up into three car-sized boulders of ice and rolling a good ways. Incredible sight to see.

Aye, even the dry-treated rope is starting to take in water and freeze.

Heading up to the top of the Wilson bench. We are climbing in a recent avalanche, with huge boulder size chunks of snow and plenty of hidden voids to post-hole into. We found an awesome series of crevasses near the top of this route.

The nearby serac dealership. Hundreds and hundreds of these things waiting to go below invoice!
Drive one off the cliff today!

"Hey dude, this is getting hairy. I can't feel my toes or my fingers. We gotta set camp."

So here is our make-shift camp. We probed the area to "ensure" that we weren't laying on a 30' snowbridge waiting to collapse into a pit of crevasse. Our neighbors: Heaping tons of hanging serac ice just waiting for enough rainfall to release and explode on the ground below. That kept us up for most of the night.

Aye, this is miserable. Our bags, that were for the most part dry (minus Mark's wet-blanket of a down bag), now have pools of water soaking into them from the wet clothes hanging above 'em. Why?????

Our tent full of hanging, dripping clothing soon became a sauna of sweaty fog. Only it wasn't warm like a sauna -- we teetered that freezing level in the tent. So all our wet things became ice things.

Day Two of Misery

We spent the entire night, from 3pm to 6am, either awake, being woken up, or becoming scared sh**less from the shivering cold and gale-force winds that were crushing the tent from both sides. We realized the next morning that we were situated on a ridge between one glacier and another, essentially allowing the wind to take turns roaring from one side and then re-channeling from the opposite side. The 6-pole tent collapsed in on itself a few times. At some point in the night we all threw on a layer of wet clothes and went outside to re-stake down the tent further. The rain never stopped. 

Early the next morning the rain changed to a thick, wet, frozen sleet that would still wet-out any surface it touched. Our soaked items began to freeze with the dropping freeze-line. We were able to get a cell phone signal and called Mark's dad, Don, to get the latest scoop on the weather. Apparently, we hadn't seen the worst of the conditions yet. The freeze-line was going to continue to drop, the winds would pick up significantly out of the southwest (our current aspect on the mtn), and the summit would be shrouded in a blizzardy white-out with hurricane-like winds for the next two/three days. We shivered as we ate a small breakfast and talked through our options. At this point we had little opportunity to dry anything out. Our clothing and boots would be frozen later that day. We finally realized that being in the shape we were in, we were only setting ourselves up for worse failure. We all made the call to bail on the route.

Tent life, while sopping wet... sucks! I can think of so many better (read: drier) places I'd rather be right now.

Let's get the hell out of here, whadayasay?!

The clouds soon rolled in and shrouded everything in a whiteout yet again. Hooray, let's go route-find.

After bailing out on the wrong side of the trail down to Paradise, I got lost from my party. This lil' blue jay looking bird was on the only living thing keeping me company until Mark and Dave reappeared from the trees. What a glorious place Paradise is in these conditions...

What a miserable place! haha

And as the sun set over the Olympics, so did our first shot at Rainier. And we wept single tears each.

Again, another order of business: restock on carbs and proteins. Time to plumpen up for the next go 'round.

Hanging out in the Bellvue / Issaquah Area

So what do mountaineerish type people do on their time off during rain-delays and such? We go to the fake mountains! And climb on colorful objects!

Mark goes for some insane 12b rated climbs. Meanwhile on the kiddie wall, I shoot for a 10a.

Dave rocked this thing. For barely having passed his belay test, he picked it all up really quickly. Good work.

Trying a lil' tasty 10b

You got it Dave... Give it hell, bro! Mark has got to be the least serious belayer out there. In a good way.

Trying our hand at bouldering... And we all fall down.

Yeah, that's right, we're back at the stinkin' grocery store. For the 14th or so time

So alas, back at square one. Time to regroup. Crossing fingers for a weather window later in the week

Part II - Drying out in the Wettest Place in the Continental USA


**Most of these awesome photos are from Mark. Gotta give him credit for capturing the mess. My camera malfunctioned at some point and began to take in moisture. And kudos to Dave for his candid video logs.