Snowshoeing at Rainier 1/14/2012

After trying on the 1st to go snowshoeing at Rainier we needed a redemption hike and warm fuzzy feeling hike at MRNP. Lauren and I went with our friend Alice and her husband (who were actually locked in the park during the fiasco on the 1st) to have some fun at MRNP! We had a good hike, but we didn't get the warm part of the fuzzy feeling.

We departed Longmire at around 10:30am at 34*F. It was still around 32 to 34*F when we reached the trail-head at Narada Falls. We started out on the trail through the trees to the Stevens Canyon road, after a little ways on the road, the wind picked up significantly, and the skies started to drop snow on us. All the drifting and falling snow coupled with large wind gusts gave us some nice unexpected and unwanted exfoliation of the face... We trudged on along the Stevens Canyon road until we got into the trees on the east end of Reflection Lake near the pass and dug in to cook some lunch. All the while it was feeling more and more cold outside.

After lunch we headed through the trees on the North side of Reflection Lake and cut over to the Mazama ridge route. By this time I was really starting to feel the cold and it was starting to get to my fingers in my old worn out gloves. I'm fairly new to the cross country travel portion of snow hiking during a drastic weather change. I'm used to hiking to snowboard, or hell just riding the lifts most days. During cooking lunch my hands got a little chilly and I had to rotate which fingers were in the finger holes and which were pulled out and being warmed by my palms as we started hiking again. At this point I kept checking up on Lauren to make sure she was ok, but apparently that nice down puffy I bought her for Christmas was definitely paying for itself on this trip and helped keep her warmer than I was after our lunch break. The uphill on the way to the saddle on Mazama ridge was welcomed and warmed me back up to toasty. We cut some corners on the way down from the ridge to stay better protected from the wind on the way back to the parking lot.

After getting back to the parking lot I noticed I had mini cornices forming on the lee side of my car... We looked at the thermometer when we got back as well and it had dropped to 19 degrees, no wonder it was so damn cold! The hike was supposed to be a nice easy hike, certainly not a character building experience. It went well, and we hope to hike with Alice and her husband again!

Snowshoeing at Rainier for the First Day of 2011!!!

What an epic day! Conditions were excellent, and the company was unbelievable! The new snowshoes were great as well. :-)

3 days, 50 miles on the Northern and Mother Mountain Loops at Mt. Rainier NP

3 day trip consisting of 50+ miles, 14,729' of elevation gain, and 14,768' of elevation loss connecting the 2 major backpacking routes in the northern section of Mt. Rainier National Park.


Day 1


Berkley Park


Falls by the lower crossing of the West Fork of the White River
Windy Gap area.
Natural Bridge
Yellowstone Cliffs.
camp 1




Day 2

Lower Carbon River crossing.

Mowich Lake
The top of Seattle and Spray parks.



Day 3

Upper Carbon River bridge crossing.
Carbon Glacier
Mystic Lake

Overall the trip was brutal and my knees hated me, but the scenery and memories were priceless.

Grand Park, 8/1/2010

So I'm a little behind on writing blogs, so I'll keep it simple and just post the movie.

Mt. Fremont MRNP 7/29/2010

A group of friends and I headed out to the Mt. Fremont lookout in the Mount Rainier National Park. We didn't get to the trail-head until 5pm, and headed up the trail. It's amazing how quiet Sunrise is in the evening, the only people we saw were headed out and by half way to Frozen Lake we had the trail to ourselves for the rest of the evening.



Morgan, Billie and I at Sunrise.
Billie and Morgan coming across the last snow field left below Frozen Lake.
Berkley Park, Burroughs and Rainier.

Morgan and Billie on the way to the Fremont Lookout. If you look carefully it's on the far peak.
Grand Park in the distance. Which is another trip report I'm behind on...


Morgan taking pictures from the lookout.

More Rainier.
Looking back down the trail.


Marmot.



Back in Sunrise meadows as the sun is setting.


We got off the trail just before dusk and enjoyed the first part of the sunset before heading down the hill. Shortly past the White River camp we had to brake hard for the little black bear crossing the road in the night...

Skyscraper Pass MRNP 7-15-2010

Well the trip was going to be a little more ambitious, but I should of packed more of a lunch to cook, and the conditions really slowed progress down...

I headed up to Sourdough ridge from the Sunrise parking lot with the rest of the hoards of visitors. There was a few small patches of snow getting to the ridge, but nothing major and it was fairly compacted from the hoards of people heading up hill. From here I headed west across the ridge towards frozen lake. Overall the majority of the trail was snow free minus a few small snow patches. The largest snow patch was right before Frozen lake, and was so well worn in it was a breeze.

Mt. Rainier from the Sourdough Ridge trail.
looking north from Sourdough Ridge.
Almost to Frozen Lake from the Sourdough Ridge trail.
The largest snow patch when approaching Frozen Lake.
Frozen Lake

From Frozen Lake I headed up towards burroughs, and it wasn't long till I was slogging through snow following the earlier tracks. When I actually started on the side hill I ran into some very nice Volunteer Rangers and talked to one of the ladies about the trail ahead. Burrough's slope was very slushy, so it took a lot of kicks to get a good enough hold on the slope... So shortly after the 1st ranger I decided to turn around and head towards Skyscraper pass through the lower snowfields. Mt. Fremont I was hoping would become less crowded later in the evening...

On the Burroughs mountain trail between the 2 rangers. The lead ranger was marking where to cut, and the following ranger was cutting the path. I turned around here... Not to farther along you are traversing above the cliff bands, and the snow was really slippery and slushy on top.
Skyscraper Mountain and Pass from the Burroughs trail.


I headed through a lot of snow all the way to the jct to the Northern Loop trail. Here is where all recent tracks stopped and from this point on any side hill I had to kick in new footings, because they were all sloped out from the melting of the snow. This really slowed the upward progress to a slow crawl at points... The further out of Berkley Park you got, the more the snow became patchy instead of being consistent snow fields. Towards the top I saw a couple mountain goats and then before the last snow crossing I saw a huge herd of mountain goats below.

The snow walk through the Wonderland trail begins...
The 2 rangers up on Burroughs digging away.
Woo Hoo! A dry patch.
Looking down into Berkley park.
One of the several snowfields I had to kick steps into on the way up...
Fremont Lookout in the background.
Another snow free section on the way up!

The sketchy part of the last crossing for me was that it was steep, and a long snowfield if something went wrong. A little more than half of it was along the steep slope, then you had to climb straight up and over the rounded over cornice to get safely to the other side. All the footings were melted away, and I had to kick in new foot holds every step of the way... From the pass it was gorgeous views in every direction. I decided not to summit Skyscraper Mt. because I was low on food, and decided it was best to head straight back since I was hungry.

A mountain goat, one of many.
A video of a Huge herd of Mt. Goats migrating across the slope under Skyscraper Mountain.


The great views from Skyscraper Pass.


Semi-trip report and views from a couple parts of the trail.


On the way back I finally ran into the first person heading out that way, since I had been in complete solitude from the turn off to Skyscraper Mt. I meandered back to the junction by Fremont and Burroughs. From here to the car it was easy sailing and closer to 95% snow free.

Oddities on the Wonderland, shortly before the junction to Berkley Park Camp.
Sunrise's parking lot is nearly empty...
Sunrise's meadow.