Mountaineers' Glacier Travel & Crevasse Rescue Field Trip

Since 2002, I've participated in the Mountaineers' annual Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue course and field trip.  As far as the field trip was concerned, this year was no exception, even after relocating to Richmond, VA.  I flew in Friday evening after work and Allyson picked me up from the airport.  We were on the road the next morning by 6am.  At 8am, we stopped at Longmire to join the group and I was glad to see familiar faces, including Darryl Olson, Ron Jarvis, Jeanette Morrison, Robie Pruden, Jerry White, Greg Louie, Michael Trommsdorff and Corinne, Skip Swenson, Amar Andalkar, Monika Johnson, and others.  Cass was in Alaska and his presence was missed.

This year I participated on the Techniques Investigation Team (TIT) to experiment with advanced rescue techniques. This was my second time working with TIT.  The first time we wrestled the issue of victim self-rescue: how in the heck does a crevasse victim climb up and over the lip unaided?  During that exploratory investigation, I played the victim and spent two hours suspended from a rope in a deep and cold crevasse trying everything from brut force to using my ice axe as a tool, but to no avail.  I simply couldn't get over the crevasses lip to save my life.  The major crux was climbing through the entrenched rope, which for the most was was hindered by my weight being on the rope.  This year we decided to give it another try by adding a few more special touches, and also to experiment with several other techniques associated with an additional rope-team rescue: the Jarvis Man Haul method.

On day one I was on one of two rope teams appointed to "scout out" the glacier before the next day's official trip onto the glacier.  We were also responsible for filming a mock rescue to be used as a promotional video and as a training video for the course next year.  While scouting the glacier, we found very little exposed crevasses due to the unusually deep snow pack in the NW this year.  The usual spot where we take students is approximately at 7000 ft. on the Nisqually, but this year the holes were completely covered.  We found nothing but nice smooth slopes on what is usually a very broken section of the Nisqually.  Continuing higher, an additional 600 ft. to be exact, we found several nice crevasses to serve as the rescue site for students to use the next day, however, the additional elevation gain posed a potential problem -- it would require at least a one hour earlier start than usual for the next day.

By the time we found the crevasses and scoped out a potential area for the next day's event, it was getting late and we decided to abandon the filming.  The ski down was excellent: smooth cream corn.

That evening, all the instructors gathered and decided for the next day to practice the rescue systems in the parking area.  Our decision was based on the results of the scouting trip earlier in the day.  It would be too much effort on everybody's part to start at least an hour earlier in the morning (~5:30am).  Instead, the road cuts in the parking lot were on the order of 15 - 25 feet high, good enough to simulate an "open" crevasse.  To give students the experience of traveling roped on a glacier, we decided after the practice in the parking lot to go up to the glacier, rope up, climb up for a bit, then ski down unroped.  It was a good compromise.

Saturday night most of us camped in our cars at the Paradise parking lot. Highlight of the evening: Paul Russell accidentally drove over and demolished my small portable hibachi gas grill. The grill was busy cooking marinated chicken breasts that Allyson had prepared the day earlier. In addition to a flattened grill, my titanium cook set sitting next to the grill at the time was also cremated. Everyone got a good laugh, myself included.

The next morning, Skip Swenson, Tom Demski, Amar Andalkar, Ed Wicklin and I worked on TIT to investigate solutions for self-rescue and two-rope team rescue.  We discovered a few interesting things, which I discuss and high light here.  After the TIT exercise, a small group of us climbed up to Glacier Vista with the class.  From there we descended the lower section of the Nisqually to the bridge.  We found fantastic skiing.

back to chronological list