A group of us climbed Little Tahoma this past weekend.
We hiked up to Meaney crest and found it to be largely melted out by
now. The walled tent sites are dry now. The evening was very windy, and
those were the conditions we woke up to at 12. The weather report at the ranger station said that the prediction called for 60mph gusts at Camp Muir... We decided to check
again in two hours.
By 2:30 the wind had died down, and the
summits of Rainier and Little Tahoma would occasionally be visible
through the drifting clouds. We left camp late, at 4am. The snow was
good and took crampons well. There were a few crevasses open on the
Fryingpan glacier. We placed five wands on the way up the Fryingpan since most of that ascent was done in clouds.
The good snow conditions persisted on the
Whitman. There are a couple of large crevasses open on it. The rock
band marking the exit from the Whitman was iced over in spots, which
made it a bit of a pain to get over. The little snowfield above that is
melting out fast. The final gully to the crest is in good shape. We
tagged the summit a little before 11 and headed down.
We rappelled the icy rock band to
descend to the Whitman glacier again. There's a couple of slings left
up there as a result of that. The snow had softened up considerably.
The entire time we were above the marine layer and had pretty good sun,
so we plungestepped down the upper 1/4 of the Whitman and glissaded the
rest. Unfortunately the Fryingpan glacier was very soft on the way back
to camp, and since it is not steep enough to glissade it made for a miserable hike. We got in another 1500' of glissading down from Meaney crest
to Fryingpan creek. The snow was soft which allowed for a very controlled glissade.
We were out to the cars at 8:30pm, having left Meaney crest a little after 5, and made it back to Bellevue a little after midnight, having stopped at Mazatlan in Enumclaw to get a bite to eat. Not too many places open at 10pm on a Sunday.
Approach: The bridge over Fryingpan creek is
damaged, but if it held me with a full pack it should hold anyone else.
Just cross one at a time.
Gear: Standard glacier gear, some anchor material for rap.
Other: We were surprised to see that AT&T has full strength coverage on Meaney crest.