Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mt. Rainier, via Kautz Ice Chutes -- July 5-9, 2012

Well this here movie I made about the trip  says it just about as well as anything I could write about it... so watch and vegetate.

(But I'll happily post a couple of pics just to whet your appetite.)













Monday, July 2, 2012

Rainier cometh: time to climb something big again

In a few days, my buddy Denis (from Quebec) and I are leaving our respective homes to meet up in Seattle, where we'll be attempting the Kautz ice chutes on Mt. Rainier. I've been looking forward to doing something other than the standard route on Rainier for some time now. We'll be facing some new challenges going unguided as a two person party, but  think it's within our climbing skill to make it happen.

Dan, Denis and I learned some lessons about scheduling climbs to begin too soon after people fly in from distant places last year when we did Mt. Baker (which I'll post about later). But because of that experience we decided that Rainier should be similar to the leisurely schedule Dan and I followed on Matterhorn Peak earlier this year. That worked great, and I expect it will again... gives us plenty of time for rest, acclimatization, and weather, if we so choose. RAWK!