Supported due to Andrew Voss meeting me on route and giving me a crampon to replace the crampon I lost and being forward staged to support if needed.
Tahoma RT record by any means (Previous Tom Goth and Jason Dorais 3:24)
Tahoma ascent record by any means (Previous 2:47 TGJD)
Tahoma descent record??? By any means (Previous Eric Carter during his FKT?)
Probably the most living I have ever compressed into 184 minutes. Just so wild up there and setting the FKT on my first trip to the summit and on sight establishing a route above 13,5 was insane. Felt like a culmination of all my mountain and military experience and physical training.
Intention was to do this with a partner, as the historic FKTs had been done. But it’s incredibly difficult to find someone who could keep up for an effort of this intensity. Then it became just getting a partner for the more technical phase of the route, 10K to the summit. My buddy Andrew Voss volunteered to come help, but as we got closer to race day it became clear with his gear and level of acclimatization that would not be possible. It came down to soloing the route or not doing it all. Going into that, for both my well being and that of whoever would have to drag my body off the mountain in the event I did crash, I knew I needed a wide margin of safety. Especially given there are currently no climbing rangers on the mountain. Further it’s early season. While the crevasses are largely covered in snow and well bridged, the danger of a crevasse fall is higher now than later in the summer. I knew if there was any doubt as to my safety, I would need to abort the effort. Here is what I did that made me comfortable:
-Long history of soloing alpine terrain: I very rarely ski, run, or scramble with partners. Over the last two years, I estimate I have upwards of 1000 hours solo backcountry skiing.
-Extensive time on glaciated and steep terrain. I was comfortable skiing in the no fall zones on Rainier. They’re small and largely above crevasses and on the Ingraham headwall.
-History of racing similar routes. I’ve raced Hood once and Shasta twice. Not as glaciated but steeper and more sustained travel on both.
-Perfect weather window, as assessed by the NOAA rec forecast and ECWMF and METBLUE models. I believe it was a forecasted high of 37 at the summit, few clouds, and no wind. Further, there had been three days last week where the freezing level had hovered around 13 and extremely sunny. That was followed by a colder period with 2-4 inches of fresh snow falling. I felt this was a good stress test and reconsolidating of the snow bridges.
-Experience on the route immediately in the days prior. My schedule was as follows:
Saturday fly to SEA
Sunday transit to Muir
Monday scout Paradise to Muir and vice versa lines
Tuesday with a partner scout Muir to 12,6.
Wednesday race
I originally intended to go the summit but I was wary of putting too much time in my legs the day before. Talking to the guides, I felt the highest danger of a catastrophic crevasse fall was on the lower Ingraham. I felt comfortable with it and felt I could assess the upper Ingraham on race day.
-Talking extensively with about a dozen guides on the mountain and having multiple GPX’s for historic routing on the upper Ingraham where the route had not been wanded (above 13,6)
-Extensive acclimatization. I’ve lived above 8600 since December and above 11,5 for the last two weeks. I slept at Muir at 10,1 while I was here, save the night before racing.
This record is all about timing and is going to involve a ton of compromises. Later in the May, the up would have been faster. There would have been a firm booter to the summit. The route was wanded to 13,6 but Voss and I were the only travel to 12,6 since the recent storm. When we turned around, we had been postholing at times 8 inches. I knew there was an AAI crew at Ingraham Flats looking to summit Wednesday AM and I hope they’d pack a booter and establish a route to the top.
Later in May the down would have been slower. Cadaver may not be an option. Jason and Tom, on May 12, 2019, had to cross three ladders bridging crevasses, on the up and down. Firmer refreeze up high means slower skiing. I think some of the routes I took to Paradise will melt out soon.
Similarly, you must start early in the day and after a good refreeze. Inevitably, by the time you get down, below Pan Face will ski awful. It’s grabby slow mashed potatoes. At the same time, starting so early the descending conditions up high will be firm. Your best chance to go fast is an average to above average snowpack, in late April or early May, on a sunny low wind day, fairly recently after a small storm (for travel up high) but with enough time having passed that a booter has been put in. Good luck !!!!
Actual race day went well. I slept poorly the days prior, just pre race nerves, and showed up already fairly tired. Driving up I was delighted to see the cloud deck was at about 4000 ft and the snow at the start was firm, even though the freezing level had been around 11. In the parking lot, I realized I had lost a crampon. I think it must have fallen out of my bag skiing the Ingraham the day prior. I called Voss at Camp Muir and fortunately he had a spare set (tf lol). They were the same crampon, but strap style (loser!). We adjusted it over the phone so the bail and length matched mine. I also realized I only brought one soft flask from CO and had to grab two water bottles out of the garbage.
I got started and immediately regretted using race skins instead of grip skins. I am not sure it would have made a difference, but from Paradise to Muir was 99% a trap and shoulder workout. I had to significantly shorten my stride and increase cadence to put power down and was still slipping. I couldn’t even use the old skinners above Pan Face, too slick.
At Muir/10,1 I grabbed the crampons from Voss. Over to Cadaver the skinning was technical and firm. When I went to transition to cramponing, I couldn’t get the new crampon on my boot. I forced it on but it popped off a couple seconds later. Judging off Strava I estimated I wasted two minutes with this fuckery. An old cut on my hand reopened and blood was going everywhere and I was dodging little rock fall. The crampons aren’t identical and I had to adjust it one peg longer.
Pushed over Cadaver and passed three skiers heading up Ingraham. Moment of truth when I got to Ingraham to see how far the AAI party had made it up the previous night. They clearly had come up but some people had also come down, possibly indicating an aborted summit attempt. Lower Ingraham went fine, two small open crevasses to step over. The route is wanded by guides contracted by the NPS. They lay the route for guided parties, it’s low angle and inefficient. Jason described his booter as a “sidewalk”. Mine definitely wasn’t that but it was passably fast.
Above 12,4 the route went right towards the cleaver instead of left towards Gib Rock as it did for TGJD. I think this was because of serac danger, it’s a slower variation. At 12,9 the booter suddenly disappeared. I immediately started postholing. Shasta all over again. I don’t remember how long the postholing lasted, but I was able to find firm windboard and refreeze adjacent to the wanded route to travel up. Above 13,5 the wands ended. I pulled up Eric Carter’s DC GPX and roughly used that for direction. The wands disappearing was a blessing, I took an extremely direct line up firm snow. I encountered two crevasses and crossed on strong bridges. At the crater there was some bullshit figuring out where the actual high point was but I appeared to have found it. Transitioned and began descent.
Ingraham headwall skied surprisingly well. Some firm sections but what had been postholing terrain before was now some creamy powder turns. Stuck close to my ascent GPX to find the bridges. Lower Ingraham skied like garbage, nasty refreeze. At one point I was leaning back so hard my boot went into walk mode and I crashed, albeit pretty slowly. Shot over to cadaver and slowly axe traversed the top refrozen rock strewn garbage and over to some amazing corn. The lower part of the chute was strewn with pebbles, the rock fall volume was insane it was closer to a storm of gravel. Below Muir the skiing was incredibly firm to 8500. 8500 to 7000 skied great and then potatoes below Pan Face.
I have about 50 people I could mention who helped out but I’ll keep it to three.
Andrew Voss: Took time off of work and slept at Muir to support this. Wouldn’t have been possible without him.
Porter McMichael, Nate Sievert, Justin Sackett and many other Ranier guides: invaluable beta on the weather and mountain. Again absolutely wouldn’t have been possible without their assistance.
Jason Dorais: Jason wrote in depth race reports for his two FKTs on this route. Jason also hopped on the phone for a while with me to discuss. I wouldn’t have gotten the timing right without him. Would have been way slower without his help.
All in all pretty cool! This is definitely one of my favorite mountains. Looking forward to coming back for some casual laps with partners!!
Media from Andrew Voss and Carly Silvernale. Didn’t mean to hit the wand, had no idea I hit it until after, thank you to Carly for putting it back up!