Rainier late January

[Bombadil]

I have abundant free time beginning in January hence the slightly early-season plan but I'm planning on flying out to Sea-Tac to meet a friend and head down to attempt Shasta via Casaval Ridge mid to late Jan. I figured while I was out there it'd be nice to see if conditions and weather were good enough for trying Rainier via Gib Ledges/ Ingraham Direct and hope the timing works out for the decent window of high pressure they get late Jan/early Feb. Anyone interested?

Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com

 

[Chugach001]

Good luck. My wife and I tried it in February once. It took us 5 days just to get to the park because roads were closed from deep snows. Then we got stormed off the mountain. But, a big, cool and uncrowded experience in winter. There is a great hut system in the foothills that ended up being a much more enjoyable ski mountaineering experience for us. Have fun.

 

[Bombadil]

Good luck. My wife and I tried it in February once. It took us 5 days just to get to the park because roads were closed from deep snows. Then we got stormed off the mountain. But, a big, cool and uncrowded experience in winter. There is a great hut system in the foothills that ended up being a much more enjoyable ski mountaineering experience for us. Have fun.

Yikes, that sounds pretty rough and I suspect there's a great many others with similar experiences. Some of the AAI guides I talked to this summer told stories about a good number of winter courses that never left Paradise due to high avi forecasts. But despite all that you can pull up the occasional TR on cascade climbers or summitpost of some lucky jerks that had it easy in great weather. Here's hoping I've endured enough bad weather out there to get to be one of the lucky ones for once...
Pat

 

[Hampshire]

Sumitted in January of 2004 via the ID. The summit attempt culminated a weeks training with RMI during their Winter Mountaineering course. Was very fortunante to sumit and to follow the legend George Dunn the entire day. The ID in January was much easier than the DC in May, weather and avy forcast not withstanding.