Distance: 9.5 mi.
Elevation Gain: 4400 ft.
Despite slight chance of precipitation, we thought it would be overall good weather for an overnight ski tour in the Tatoosh Range. We got to Mount Rainier National Park just after 10 AM to wait in line for a backcountry permit, and managed to get one of the three spots in the backcountry camp zone we were eyeing in the east Tatoosh Range. We drove to the Narada Falls parking lot and finally got moving at 11 AM. We walked to the end of the lot to ski up the steep slope to the closed Stevens Canyon Road above. The skinning was challenging due to an icy crust and Craig decided to boot up while Vanessa put on ski crampons. After an ugly struggle, we managed to make it to the road above, only to realize that it was plowed and we would need to carry our skis to the trailhead. This was not indicated to us by the ranger or by the park website at all. Cue pouty faces all around.
We did the 1.1 mile walk on paved road until we saw an obvious trailhead on the right, with several fresh tracks from that day. We saw some hikers coming down early on, but those were the last souls we saw for the remainder of our tour. We followed fresh skin tracks until we reached the ridge between The Castle and Foss.
Vanessa skinning toward The Castle
Here we set up camp on the small sub-peak east of the Castle and had lunch. We could see that there were clouds building from all directions and we were worried that we might get rained on. Undeterred, we did a downhill skin off the south side of the ridge, then on the ridge itself did some awkward tree skinning on top of small cornices. We skinned around the unnamed lake west of Foss Peak and then ascended the norwest ridge of Foss. Just as we reached the summit, it started to flurry. We had the snow equivalent of sunshowers and it was magical! We had a fun ski back down into the bowl and then skinned back up to camp while it continued to snow. It snowed about 1/4 inch before stopping after sunset. We made dinner and then hid out in our tent to dry off.
The next morning, the clouds had vanished and we had a crystal clear view of Mount Rainier to wake up to! The crust was still firm so we took our time with our morning ritual before packing up camp. Craig had scoped out the best route for us to approach Plummer Peak, which was to ski south from our camp until we could round the south ridge of the castle and then traverse to the south side of Pinnacle Peak where we could skin up to the notch between Pinnacle and Plummer. It was a good thing we did this in the morning because we crossed a lot of avalanche debris from recent wet slides. When we reached the ridge we set aside our overnight gear and then continued skinning west and then south toward Plummer Peak.
The final few feet to the summit were especially steep, so we took off our skis and booted the final portion. We had a summit beer and then skied back down the west side on a breakable crust. We reached the low point in the ridge between Plummer and Denman and then put skins back on. We started climbing the southwest ridge of Denman but quickly decided it was a fool’s errand because the slushy snow kept sloughing off whenever we tried to hold an edge. It was great snow for boot packing, so we set aside our skis and quickly booted to the top which was surprisingly quick. We returned to our skis and left skins on for a short descent to the ridge between Plummer and Denman. We climbed this ridge again and then quickly skied across the north bowl below Plummer back to our gear.
We packed up and dropped north into the gully between Denman and Pinnacle Peaks which for the most part had gentle slopes and perfect corn – a relief with our overnight gear on our backs! There was a lot of wet slide material in this gully. At about 5100 feet we put skins back on and began traversing east toward Pinnacle Peak Trail so we could rejoin the road where we started. We stopped for lunch and then followed the tracks back out to our entry point from the road. Once again, we carried skis until we reached the slope above the parking lot. We were able to find a lower angle approach a little farther north but later in the day with soft snow the steeper standard route is probably better back to the car.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Recommended brew: Martin House Acheron Whiskey-Barrel Aged Imperial Stout
Gear Used:
- Avalanche beacon/shovel/probe
- Backcountry boots/skis/skins
- Backpacking tent
- Bear canister
- Glacier glasses
- GPS
- Helmet
- Ski crampons
- Sleeping pad
- Stove
- Trekking poles
- Water drops
- Whippet
- Winter sleeping bag
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