July 18
Here is a great conditions update sent to us by Scott Seitz. Looks like they climbed around July 8th, apologies for the delay.
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Conditions were near perfect
last weekend when my buddy, Bob Toney, and I climbed up and over
Success Cleaver and down to Muir. Friday was several hours of casual
day hiking from the Westside Road (2,880) to the 6,500 foot saddle at
Pyramid Peak. We noticed the improved trail along the river. It is
very nice and a lot flatter that it used to be. (Thank you to
whoever worked on the ‘unmaintained trail’.)
Saturday was your standard snow slog
to high camp around 10,200. We kicked steps in good snow most of the
way but did spend some quality time on the ridge itself. Climbing on
the rock ridge was spectacular. Great day of climbing; very casual.
Well, mostly casual until Bob ran
into the ‘puffy-white snow’ on our last traverse before camp.
The sun was working its magic on the snow and, when he was crossing,
a few inches of the ‘puffy-white’ snow broke off and slid around
him. Nothing to write home about but it was his first ‘slide’ and
spooked him enough that he avoided the puffy-white snow the rest of
the trip. ‘Bob’, I asked after the final rock band on summit
morning, ‘why did you choose to climb up the rocks instead of
taking the snow?’ ‘Well, to be honest; I saw the puffy-white
snow. Did not want to chance it.’
At high camp, it was next to
impossible to sleep with the sun pounding down on us but we managed
to get a few hours of quality sleep. Left at midnight. The moon cast
enough light to avoid using the headlamp most of the time. Freezing
level was around 13,500 and we knew it! The first two hours were
tedious and to be frank: It was ugly. We post-holed up past our
thighs in a lot of places. We flounder on the rock when we move back
to the ridge. There was no way we could sustain this pace and make
it up. I express this obvious fact to Bob. He suggested we should
give it another hour and see where we were then. Plus, he argued, you
cannot turn around at two in the morning! He had a good point. Indeed
after an hour, we found better snow and fell into a great climbing
rhythm.
High on the route the exposure was
great but the snow was excellent. Add in a few pickets we brought
made the climbing relaxed.
The best parts of this climb are all
of the choices needed with the route finding. Do we stick to the
ridge; do we go around this rock band or up and over? Most of the
time we could not see the right choice. Many times I hoped we would
not be trapped and need to down climb. Nevertheless, all choices
were perfect, especially the exit move to the summit cap: Straight
up the first weakness in the rock band was the answer. We considered
rolling around to our left but that looked too easy and way too long.
Since we were being greeted by a forming lenticular, around 13k, it
was prudent to put on more clothes, head straight up and pick up the
pace a little.
Our decent was your standard slog
down to Muir. We took a straight, diagonal, line down to the
established DC route from the saddle between Success and Columbia
summits without a crevasse in sight.
The route is in great shape.
Consider jumping on it now, if it is on your list of routes to do
this year. And yes, Gauthier’s time line in his guide book (Mt
Rainier, a Climbing Guide) is real: Summit day is 8 – 10 hours from
high camp. With our first two hours of ugliness, it took every bit of
11 hours to summit.
