Mt. Rainier, Furher Finger

Mt. Rainier finally had a good weekend forecast, so it was time to attempt the Furher Finger route.



Our route is shown in red. We descended the Kautz Glacier route, shown in blue.

Dave on the Nisqually Glacier passing some crevasses on our way to high camp.

Our camp at Turtle Rock (9400').



We got an "alpine start" at midnight, so we could hopefully get to the top and down before the snow got too soft. Dave moving up Furher Finger.



Doug near the Hourglass.

Doug and Dave on top with a little snow falling.

Dave below the steep pitches on the Kautz Glacier, just above the Turtle Snowfield.





The weather was great on day one and OK on summit day. The fresh snow from a few days earlier made the climb pretty tiring. We ended up using our snowshoes to keep from sinking into the mushy snow on the way down from high camp.





It was fun and challenging to climb a new route on Rainier.