Mt. Rainier-Kautz Glacier Route
In June of 2009, I flew down to Seattle to meet my good buddy George and to spend a few days up on Rainier. Our goal was the Kautz Glacier route which has an icy headwall crux pitch at about 12,500' for which we carried up some basic rock pro and some smaller ice screws. We got caught in an exciting storm which blew over within four hours and ended up getting turned back by the headwall which had only a thin layer of rime that wouldn't take any screws or pro nor was it deep enough to sink our third tools into. However, once we started heading down, that's when the things got truly exciting.