Mt Rainier June 2024 Short

We had Disappointment Cleaver (DC) route Rainier climbing permits June 6-8, 2024. They are hard to get.

Checking in with the climbing rangers at Paradise, they confirmed that the recent storm had dumped 3-5 feet of new snow between June 2-5 (plus wind loading as the route is leeward) above 12K. This buried all the fixed ropes and protection maintained by the guide groups. There was also a huge warmup with freezing levels above 14K June 7-8, meaning we should expect a big avalanche shed cycle from the new snow plus rapid warming.

We climbed to camp Muir and confirmed that no guided parties were going above 11K for those reasons (unestablished route, no fixed protection, and pending shed cycle) and so we made the call to abort our summit attempt and sleep in. We also observed the predicted huge avalanche activity next to our route and got it on video.

The next day we climbed Ingraham Glacier to the base of Disappointment Cleaver where the risk would increase substantially if we went any higher. We're 4 married guys in our 50s with 13 kids between us, and it was the right call to abort.

But even with no summit attempt, it was spectacular and always wonderful to be Ryan, Kris and John. We all felt good physically and had no issues w/ gear, altitude sickness, or anything.

Given that we had an extra day with no summit attempt, we went over to Mt Hood as a consolation prize and ski toured Upper Zig-Zag Glacier and Illumination Saddle, which was awesome (   • Illumination Saddle and Upper Zig-Zag...  ). It was a great way to end the ski season.

All told, we climbed 6046 vertical feet on Rainier, skied 5375 vertical feet down Rainier's Muir Snow Field and then ski toured 4435 vertical feet on Hood for a total of nearly 10.5K vert feet in three days.