rainier-success couloir

Nothing is over. To be honest I’m more excited about skiing than I have been all winter. Alaska always seems to really kick me into gear. I  do love the warmer temps, longer daylight and increased stability that this time of year offers. I could do an entire blog just on the joy of flip-flops after a tour. Tricky part of this time of year is weather. I’ve been keeping an eye on 4 or 5 different areas and projects and last week a solid “H” finally appeared over Mt Rainier.

Funny how you make friends through skiing even when you’ve never been skiing together. Drew Tabke and I have been scheming and dreaming about obscure lines on Rainier via email for years. Schedules finally aligned with a full moon. I’m a huge fan of the Freeskiing and Freeride World Tours and truth is I was nervous to be skiing with the World Freeskiing Champion. 

Driving into Paradise Lodge you’re faced with the jumbled glory of Point Success, which is one of Mount Rainier’s three summits. The success couloir jumps out as an obvious classic. Drew recommended this line (in red) with hopes of catching some corn and I was like, “whatever you say champ”!

Plenty of photo’s were taken from many vantage points low on the mountain so we could reference them later and navigate over to the Kautz Glacier and up the Kautz Headwall. On a mountain so big and complex these pics came in very handy.

Drew had already summited and skied the DC route that day and I had driven for 12 hours so we sorted gear and crashed hard in the parking lot.

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”

“The fox is often associated with the figure of the trickster, but as a spirit animal, it can also turn into a teacher providing guidance on swiftly finding your way around obstacles. If you follow the fox totem wisdom, you may be called to use or develop quick thinking and adaptability. Responsive, sometimes cunning, this power animal is a great guide when you are facing tricky situations.”

-Spirit Animal Guide-

Joe and Jesse had been up the mountain with Drew the day before. They headed in with us to ski the turtle and then headed back down. Before they skied back Drew realized he had left his food bag in the cooler at the car. I had brought some extra and with Joe and Jesse donating their remaining provisions we figured we’d survive.

After a good corn session down the turtle we took shelter from the fiery afternoon sun under Drew’s Mega-mid.

Snacks and snoozing! The new Evac-7 shovel from Black Diamond touts many useful features such as a nice big D-handle and a hoeing mode. You can add grill to the list. We were surprised this worked so well.

And early to bed again.

Up and moving at three a.m.

The original plan was to ascend right up the Kautz headwal (far right of photo), but we found a better solution by gaining the ridge earlier via the snow slope in the center of the pic.

Some totally unadulterated moments of pleasure while consuming a meal bar. And posted per my Pro Bar sponsorship agreement. 😉

This is Rainier!

We popped out on Point Success rather suddenly as opposed to the long rounded approach one gets on the Columbia Crest.

“Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.”

According to Drew’s calculations this line averages 42 degrees for 5600ft! After that it gets much flatter, but you could run it out much further. On a line this long its to be expected that you’ll encounter a mixed variety of snow conditions. And we did! Very firm and edgy up high, perfect corn in the middle and very sloppy and sticky down low.

There were two very steep rolls that approached 50 degrees. The upper was tricky snow and we side-stepped. The second was corn and we skied the shit out of it.

Is that an axe, or is that a pole in my right hand? It’s the Vorpal and it’s both (blog post coming soon).

Drew with many miles still to go.

We cut over to the west lower down and considered this great looking sister chute, but the snow didn’t look as good so we cut back skiers left.

Pretty incredible to get out with someone who has so fully mastered the craft of skiing in it’s many forms!

I do believe this is one of the greatest ski-able peaks I’ve had the pleasure to ascend and descend. There are so many interesting and consistently angled aspects with HUGE exposure and vertical relief. Sure it’s a 12.5 hour drive from SLC, but worth it every time.

Thanks Drew. Success on all aspects, a perfect outing!