2025 Rainier Ski Descent

the 2025 bucket list gains legs

Link: Strava Activity

Synopsis

On Friday, April 17, Tim Hambidge, Gabriel Lake, David Neill and I climbed Ingram Direct and skied down the Furher Finger on Rainier aka Tahoma. This completed my 2025 Bucket List goal of skiing down Mt Rainier.

Full Story

I went to Cripple Creek Backcountry Thursday April 16 at 3:30pm to pick up my newly mounted Black Diamond Helio 88s. (Read about the sponsorship in my previous post.) I mentioned to the manager that I was taking the skis straight to the Furher Finger on Rainier (one of the 50 classic ski descents of North America). He tightened the bindings to a DIN of 7 and wished me luck.

Earlier that week, I saw that Rainier had a forecast for crystal clear skies on Friday April 17. At Peter Steele’s suggestion, I made a post in the Cowgill Trail Collective Slack on Wednesday morning. That evening, three people responded to say they were interested. Thursday morning, I called one of the folks David, whom I’d never met. He grew up skiing near Mt. Shasta in California and had climbed Rainier once in 2021 with his now-wife but still yet to ski down. He sounded like the perfect partner, and boom, we had a team.

I hastily packed my things: ski gear, warm clothes, crevasse rescue gear, food and water. I left work early around 2 pm to run last minute errands including picking up my new Helio 88 skis from Cripple Creek. Around that time, Tim found a dog sitter, and Gabriel reached out to ask to join, so our team doubled to four people. David and I met at the Green Lake Park and Ride and we hit the road for Paradise, save for a quick detour to REI to buy a glacier rope.

Tahoma welcomes you

We got to Paradise around 8 pm, self-registered for a climber’s permit in the ranger station and practiced some crevasse rescue in the parking lot until Tim and Gabriel pulled in around 9pm. We got to bed around 10pm and set our alarms for 12:30am.

We were skinning uphill from Paradise by 2 am under a waning gibbous. We made it to Muir by 6 am and then roped up and switched to crampons for the climb up Ingram Direct. The wind going up Ingram Glacier blew me over repeatedly and significantly slowed our pace. At one stopping point, I confessed that I lacked motivation in the face of the strong wind. Tim, however, suggested we keep going higher until we could eat a snack and take shelter from the wind.

We go up

Tim’s confidence gave me hope, and we charged ahead until making it to the summit around 2pm. Fortunately, our descent on the south side of the mountain was completely sheltered from the wind. Gabriel navigated us around crevasses down steep chalky sastrugi that would’ve worried me in my old skis, but today I felt rock solid. By the time we got to the entrance of the Fuhrer Finger, the snow was soft and even a little heavy from being blasted by sun. In my tired state, I skied the finger poorly and regretted not making an effort to de-layer and re-hydrate.

We go down

As we neared the bottom, I expressed my amazement to everyone at how smoothly the day went. We all came together to work as an effective team despite the fact that Gabriel, David and I had never even met each other. I never would’ve guessed that I’d get the chance to check off a bucket list item on a whim with a group of people I just met. Each and every member of our team took leadership at one point in the day. We ran a true egalitarian program, and yet none of it happened by design. What a treat to share such a special occasion with three other (mostly) new friends. Mama Tahoma was watching over us.

On my visa application to India, there was a field labeled religion. I wrote “volcanoes.”