Mt. Rainier via Russell Cliffs …. Denied!!

This is the route and highpoint that we made it to on Mt Rainier this past week. Our team, Jamie, Jeff (Willie) and I wanted to challenge ourselves with a less traveled more difficult route and settled on Russell Cliffs.

The approach to Russell Cliffs takes you from the White River Ranger Station @ 4000’ to Glacier Basin @ ~ 6000’ for Camp 1. From Glacier Basin you travel up around the lower end of the Emmons Glacier and a great view of Little Tahoma Peak on to Camp Schurman (high camp) @ ~ 9000’. This is the toughest day since you are carrying all of your gear and gaining close to 3000’ vertical over no more 2 miles.

Camp Schurman is high camp and provides access to multiple climbing routes while hosting up to 35 climbers. We were joined by 4 other teams, all of which were taking the most popular route, the Emmons Glacier Route. One team had plans to do a ski/snow board descent. We of course were headed for the rock banded ridge to the right, across the Winthrop Glacier.

Both approach days were cloudless and calm. Midnight on summit day proved a little different. We woke to a sliver moon and the lights of Seattle and Puget Sound. However a strong wind accompanied the clear skies and we all felt like conditions were changing. We made it onto the Winthrop Glacier a little after 2AM and planned to cross it before sunrise, 5AM. By about 2:30AM my right leg had found our first of 3 crevasses. I was awake before but really awake now. Jamie and I were on the ends of the rope with Willie in the middle, so we reversed and Jamie took the lead crossing a gorgeous ice bridge over a crevasse, around and through huge seracs.

We continued to swing leads and zigzag away around the glacier and up a dramatic 60 degree ice wall. Eventually, as the sun rose, Jamie fell with both feet, into a crevasse as well. We kidded about other teams watching our head lamps go, drop, retreat and go another direction only to drop and try again, all the while watching the summit disappear behind a cloud of snow that was coming our way. The morning continued on like this until we finally decided that the weak snow (we had been post holing in 10” snow), crevasse ridden Winthrop and the deteriorating weather was too much to surmount.

So after 6 hours of effort we turned around and started backtracking steps that were already being erased by the wind and new snow. I had learned a lot about glacier travel by this point but I got one more lesson before we exited the glacier. The lesson is, walking down hill applies a lot more pressure to the surface that walking up; puff, another punch through. This one, while still with only one leg, was completely unexpected and a real hair raiser. So in the end Jamie and I had tied one another; Jamie with 1 fall/ 2 legs, me with 2 falls/ 1 leg each totally 2 legs a piece.

While I am let down that we did not reach the summit, I am glad that we chose a route that engaged us as a team. Both rangers and the guide book noted that our route required route finding and an awareness of objective hazards. That our route was a quality route that didn’t see much traffic except by those that who wanted to avoid the crowds and go it alone. So we didn’t summit, we still had fine time trying and a good challenge in making our 11,000’ high point.

Indecently all of the teams from Camp Shurman were turned back that morning by bad weather, before reaching the summit. We were, upon returning to camp, greeted with hot tea from a climber that watched our efforts as we were the last to return. Good Tea!