Mount Rainier/Emmons Glacier

We started out Friday morning on the Emmons route, weather was great. Sunny with temps at Camp Schurman near 40. Crevasses on the Inter Glacier were small and we didn’t see any parties roped up. There are a few snow bridge hazards over running water as you transition from the dirt trail to snow.

We roped up on reaching the crest where the Glacier Basin Trail transitions to the Emmons Glacier. You can see many crevasses along the route to Schurman.

We set out at 11:45pm from camp to start our ascent. Freezing level was around 12,000 feet on our way up. Conditions were clear and we caught a glimpse of the aurora borealis.

At the end of the corridor we had to make some route finding decisions to cross a few sketchier crevasses.

Around 13,600 the main route people were taking moved to the right up to the saddle. We wanted to try to find a route that was more direct, so on the way up we made an earlier crossing of the crevasse that lead to a much steeper route. In hindsight the route up the saddle would have been more pleasant since the route we chose had a lot of edging. As we were going up we decided we would take the saddle down. After that we met back up with the main boot path and there it was a pretty straight track to the summit.

On reaching the summit around 8:30am we had a nice break. Freezing level was forecasted to drop to around 9,000 feet for our way down. Conditions were windy and a bit chilly, around 18 degrees, though still sunny and great views. We could see some clouds in the distance and wanted to get down before the forecasted storms in the afternoon.

On the descent, the saddle proved a good route. With the sun, the snow was mushy through the corridor. We were back at camp around 1:30pm, had a break then packed up and hiked out, getting back to the car around 7pm. We were able to glissade down the Inter Glacier. On our hike out we could see some weather moving in towards the summit.