Mount Adams popping above the Tatoosh
Mike above the clouds; beautiful but hot
Heading up the Nisqually Glacier to camp beneath the Finger
Our camp above the clouds
3am start
Finally on flatter ground, but by no means flat. Notice there were no pictures taken in the Fuhrer Finger. It was too damn steep. It wasn't the steepness itself, but the combination of it being steep, icy, and 2,000 long. My contact case fell out of my pocket and shot down the couloir. If you fell, you'd have to self-arrest instantly or perish. So it was tired and slow going uphill: kick-kick-whippet-ax-breathe. No place to rest. Rocks started coming down at 9am. You wouldn't hear them much, you'd just see them shoot by extremely fast. You put your head down, wanting to get hit in the helmet instead of the face. A rock in the face could knock you off your feet, then you'd slide to your death. So all these factors made the climb scary. And every time after doing something this scary, I say this is the last time. I want to live to old age and this isn't fun being scared.
At 12,000 feet, we had another 2,400 left to go. Decisions had to be made. The climb up the Finger left us with frayed nerves and tired legs. Mike had run out of gas and would rather summit another time. Ryan had been on top before and was tired. Both were feeling the altitude. This was my only chance and my legs felt good so I was leaning towards going for the top. I felt like making a summit blitz but with the glacier crossing, I'd need a partner on the rope. But the summit isn't the most important thing. More than anything else, I wanted to ski the Finger in corn, not ice, and I thought that could take some time. It was 9:30am when we topped out. We thought we'd have all day, except the damn sun was so hot and there was no wind to keep us nor the snow cool. Things were warming up fast. The snowpack changed to breakable crust above the Finger, and we were in postholes past out knees in unconsolidated snow. If this got too warm, it could be sketchy. We were roped up and spread out on the glacier above the Finger when we stopped to consider our options. If we went for the summit, we would be too late to ski the snow before it's too melted out. So at 10am, we turned around. It hurt a little because I felt great and the conditions were nearly perfect, the weather was perfect (except it was a little too hot), and I probably won't be back in the Cascades for a long time. But once we entered the finger to find the southeast facing slopes had turned to corn, the decision felt right. It actually felt better and better. And an 8,000 foot run is still the longest in my life.
The Finger skied perfectly. No runnels, no sun cups, very little debris, perfect corn. From the lower part to the wide open glacier fields to camp, we had blissful corn and unfettered joy and freedom carving turns all over the place. I did my trademark 50 yard wide turns at high speeds, not shaving any speed on the turns to make the skiing last longer. Our goal was to ski the last bit of the Finger to camp without stopping and my legs could barely hold that.
At camp, we broke down the tent, had a bite to eat, packed up, and were on our way with another 4,000 feet or so to go, down to the Nisqually bridge. The skiing was perfect corn, the wide glacier highway down was spectacular skiing. We skied on and on and on in perfect snow and perfect sunshine. All the way down to where we ran out of snow around 4,000 feet, a little ways from the bridge. In all, it was the longest and probably best run of my life, but it could have been even better with a summit.
