Furher Finger, Mount Rainier - Trip Report

     Where:  Furher Finger, Mount Rainier
     
     When: June 28-30, 1997
     
     Who:  Doug Solfermoser, Bryn Hughes, Mark Scott-Nash, Shelly 
     Scott-Nash, Jim Gallo
     
     It amazed me how enormously big Mount Rainier is.  I've been on big 
     mountains all over the world and have climbed in Colorado many years.  
     This has produced a psychological effect in me of looking at Rainier 
     as "only a 14'er".  After having climbed it I now understand why there 
     is such a great American climbing tradition coming from the Northwest. 
      Rainier has all the good and bad aspects of any big mountain in the 
     world except for extreme altitude.  Massive glaciers, long, steep 
     routes and wildly varying, unpredictable and extreme weather.  The 
     accessibility of this mountain and low monetary and time cost 
     (relative to a bigger expedition) make it a perfect training and 
     testing ground for just about any other "big" peak in the world.
     
     We arrived at the Paradise ranger station on June 28.  While checking 
     in, the ranger gave us a "long range" weather forcast for the next 
     day:  Unsettled.  We decided to go for it even though we had built in 
     several weather days in our trip.  We threw in an extra day of food 
     and started out for our high camp.  The Furher Finger is a long, steep 
     coulior that connects the Wilson and Nisqually glacier, and is 
     generally considered the "shortest" route to the summit from Paradise. 
      From our route, we could see the masses of people heading up the 
     Dissappointment Cleaver route (standard) to Camp Muir.  After about 6 
     hours and 5000 vertical feet of climbing, we arrived at our camp on 
     the western edge of the Wilson Glacier.  Our camp was at approximately 
     9000 feet.  We saw no one else except a party that remained ahead of 
     us all day headed for the Kautz Glacier route.
     
     Climbing a route with no other parties on it has it's aestetic 
     advantages to a mountaineer.  It also has it's disadvantages.  One 
     main disadvantage is that you must forge your own routes through 
     glaciers.  We were planning on setting off well before sunrise the 
     next day to avoid rockfall and avalanche hazard in the coulior.  The 
     first part of the route above high camp involves crossing the Wilson 
     to the base of the coulior and would be dangerous to cross at night.  
     Therefore, as soon as we arrived in camp, Doug and I set off to 
     establish the route across the glacier while the others set up camp.  
     This turned out to be an excellent strategy.
     
     Doug and I arrived back at high camp a couple of hours later.  The 
     weather was good all day and we were getting great views of Mount 
     Adams and St. Hellens poking above the low clouds in the distance.  We 
     ate dinner and rehydrated as much as we could before catching a few 
     hours of sleep.  
     
     The alarm went off the next morning at 1 am.  By 2:30, we were all on 
     the glacier.  At the base of the coulior, we unroped and started up 
     the gradually steepening slope that started out at about 30 degrees 
     and flaired up to 45 or 50 degrees at the top.  The snow was icy and 
     crusty in areas.  It was very surreal (maybe due to my low blood 
     caffiene level) to see our team spread out on the slope, climbing by 
     headlamp.  By the time we topped out on the coulior above the 
     Nisqually ice fall, we had come up an unrelenting 2500 feet of steep 
     alpine ice.  At this point we noticed why dawn was late, there were a 
     lot of high clouds to the east.  The weather was starting to look a 
     little threatening.
     
     The next part of the route follows the steep edge of the upper 
     Nisqually glacier.  There is a series of ice steps next to friable 
     volcanic rock on this section.  The steps sloped up to 70 or 80 
     degrees in sections, challenging our one-tool techniques.  We started 
     a running belay about half way up this slope using pickets for 
     protection.  The steepness ended at about 12,200 feet on a rounded 
     "hill".  We all agreed that it was an excellent mountaineering route 
     with its varied climbing and exposure.
     
     We weren't at the top yet.  It was basically a walk-up to 13,000 feet 
     where the Furher Finger route meets the Kautz Glacier route at a wide 
     saddle.  The team we had seen ascending the previous day was a little 
     ahead of us on their route at this point.  The other party had left 
     one person here because of altitude illness.  She informed us that her 
     boyfriend leading their party had climbed "all over" and had climbed 
     Rainier many times and knew exactly what he was doing.  Well, I don't 
     know if it was because of altitude (only 13K feet, a poor excuse), or 
     tiredness, that we decided to follow them.  My experience has been 
     that it's always a bad idea to follow anyone in the mountains without 
     talking to them first.  They were headed up the western side of a 
     large ice ridge above us.  The summit, visible to us, was more 
     directly accessible on the eastern side of this ridge.
     
     Anyway, we climbed up to about 13,500 on the eastern side of the 
     ridge.  The conditions here were sustained 45 degree blue ice, much 
     more difficult climbing than we had already done.  We decided that if 
     we had completed the face, it would take too long to safely descend it 
     in what was now obviously deteriorating weather.  By the time we 
     downclimbed back to the saddle in a running belay, two hours had been 
     wasted.  We decided that it would be better to descend.  This turned 
     out to be a very wise decision.
     
     We descended the Kautz Glacier route because it was basically a walk 
     down.  As we started our trek down, we noticed the other party (about 
     2000 feet above) descending the ice face above, roped together but 
     without any protection placed.  They had obviously come to the same 
     conclusion as we did about turning around.  Someone slipped and one 
     roped team fell.  Amazingly, one person held the other two falling, 
     stopping them just short of a giant bergshrund.  We watched for a 
     while until they all recovered and headed down again.  Later, when we 
     talked to them, they seemed very shaken up by the incident.  Lesson:  
     It's dangerous to simulclimb without placing protection.
     
     We continued down in what was now a thickening whiteout.  Eventually, 
     the slope steepened to 50 degrees, necessitating careful downclimbing 
     for a few hundred feet.  Eventually we found the exit coulior and got 
     onto the rocks 2500 feet above our camp.  We descended into what was 
     now a full blown snowstorm to our camp.  We arrived at about 7:30, a 
     17 hour climbing day.  That night about 8 inches of wet snow fell, 
     taking the Furher Finger out of condition with high avalanche hazard.
     
     We got up late the next day to perfect blue, windless skies.  After a 
     leisurly breakfast and espresso, we descended into the cloud layer 
     below.  There were sluff avalanches coming off all the slopes around 
     us.  We made it back to Paradise by 4:30 and beer by 5...

This article first appeared on the hialtmtn list processor.