South Tahoma Headwall

For the second year in a row, I headed out to Washington to work for RMI Expeditions for the summer. The work has been great and the springtime conditions up here can be hard to beat. With the first few weeks of May off from work, I focused my attention on some personal skiing on Mount Rainier. 

Headed up the snowfield

The first mission began right when I arrived in Ashford. Henry Coppolillo had reached out and was hoping to ski for his birthday on May 3rd. Arriving late on the 2nd of May, I quickly unpacked my kit, repacked and tried to get some sleep prior to my 2:30am pickup from Henry and Ben Ammon another guide at RMI. Our plan was to something on the Southwest side of Rainier with the plan of skiing back down to the car from Paradise. But when Henry and Ben picked me up in the morning that had other ideas. They were keen on checking out the South Tahoma Headwall on the west side of Mount Rainier. I was enthusiastically on board and we quickly began up the Muir Snowfield. 

We made great time up the snowfield and soon we were booting up past the Beehive and to Gibraltar Ledges. We kept the rope tucked away and continued up the ledges and into the upper part of the couloir. Here we rested and refueled. 

On top of the ledges

I was feeling particularly worked having driven out to Washington the day before, and those guys smoked me on the upper part of the mountain. After our break we continued up through the tumultuous and broken upper Nisqually Glacier, having to pull the rope out and even "pitch" out a few small traverses. This is my favorite kind of mountain travel. One that involves all of the tricks and skills you have in your bag. 

Racking on the upper mountain

Once we moved through the broken, glaciated terrain, the terrain eased and we settled into mellow walking up to the top of Point Success. By this point I was extremely tired and those guys certainly had to wait for me to keep up. Thankfully the terrain was simple and a rope was not needed. After some much needed self-care time on top, we were ready to ski. 

The first rappel

Since it was Henry's birthday and Ben was preparing for his AMGA Ski Exam, by default I let those guys lead the charge to the notch of the South Tahoma Headwall. Ski's were donned just below the true summit of Point Success and we gingerly hop turned our way down diagonal ramps of pleasantly soft snow. We leap frogged and smiled as the terrain was pretty casual and it was comforting to finally have skis on our feet. We finally got to the first cliff band and opted to leave an old aluminum, deadman picket. 30m later, we had our skis back on and continued down slope.

With the warming temperatures, there was an increase in rockfall and we skied on the far skiers left down a tongue of snow and out of the couloirs gut. There were few places where we side slipped through ice filled chokes but overall the skiing was pleasant to say the least! Finally, we reached a point where we could either traverse skiers right into the gut or continue down the left tongue of snow. We chose to stay left.

We finally ran out of snow and to a downward sloping scree ramp and then about a 100ft cliff. We realized our mistake and considered booting back up and out but figured instead we would just rappel. Ben and Henry set up the rap as they had skied to the edge of the cliff first and I watched in a safe zone just above. 

Ben slung a shallow horn of rock that was smooth, strong and of good quality with some 7mm cord. With loose rock below, we figured the safest option was to lower the first two skiers so the ropes were hung slowly and not tossed. This ultimately would save Henry's life or at a minimum prevent him from serious injury. 

Henry clipped the end of the rope with an overhand on a bight to his harness with a locking carabiner. Ben threaded his belay plate with the rope and attached a "third hand" auto block to the brake strand and began to lower Henry down to the couloir below. As Henry was being lowered over the sloped edge, the load strand began to fully weight the anchor and after about 10m we all heard a "pop" and Ben yelled "oh fuck." The cord had slip off of the smooth, rounded rock horn and Ben had caught Henry off of his harness. "What the fuck was that?" Henry called up. Ben replied, "Henry are you in an okay spot? The anchor just blew." Henry was thankfully on a sloped ledge and was able to take some weight off of Ben. In the meantime, I was scrambling to find another anchor. The snow had turned quite soft, and the thin bit of ice underneath was not nearly enough for an anchor. A picket also resisted my anchor attempts in the shallow snow. 

Finally, I realized there was a massive boulder that we might be able to sling and transfer Henry's weight to. I slung the crumbly, volcanic boulder and just had enough cord to do so. I tied both ends together and clipped and flipped a locker to it. I then tied a releasable munter mule overhand (MMO) and Ben slowly lowered Henry's weight onto the new anchor. The cord from Henry's wieght cut into the crumbly, volcanic rock and Ben and I held our breath. Finally the load was fully transfered and although it was poor rock, it was unlikely the cord would cut through the full formation. I released the hitch and lowered Henry to the snow (or so I thought). 

Henry had reached a ledge and decided he was done with the ropes and down-climbed the 10ft section to the snow. Now it was my turn...

Ben and I tied both of our ropes together and fixed the rope with an extra 20ft of rope. "That should be enough," Ben said. I started to rappel and gingerly avoided the loose rock. After some faffing, I made it to the snow. Psyched to see Henry down below after our hour long mishap. Ben followed and we soon pulled our ropes with our skis back on our feet. 

Feeling pretty shaken up, we were all pretty psyched to get out of the gun barrel we were now in. We simul skied the lower portion of the South Tahoma Headwall and enjoyed steep, edge able skiing in an amazing setting. Whooping and hollering we all fist bumped once we were out of the serious, objectively hazardous terrain. We still had 3k' of skiing left to do.

The rolling terrain of the Tahoma glacier was a dream and we stopped a few times to recheck our gps maps and tracks that helped aid our descent. A few times we had to side step and soon we reached the treeline were the skiing got a whole lot more "techy." By this point the skiing was more like a controlled fall and very desperate. We were nearing "ski crash" territory. The fallen fir branches from the windy winter made our skis stick and nearly made me crash. 

After a break we strapped our skis to our packs and continued the descent on foot. We hit the West Side Road as the sun began to set and reached the cars just as dusk swept over the valley. We were tired, psyched and thankful. Thankful for a safe birthday ski day for Henry's 24th year on earth. That being said, we cut the margins pretty thin and the day could have ended a lot differently. Nothing more to do than go to the Elbe, smoke a cig and drink a beer. All while scheming the next trip to the top of Washington with skis.