Pro Guiding Service - Skiing the Big One

Anything with 10,000 vertical feet of fall-line skiing rates as a world class ski run. Martin Volken, a transplanted Swiss Mountain guide living and working in Washington State, is looking up at the massive hulk of Mount Rainier before us and at the sickle-shaped swath of the Nisqually Glacier. It sweeps off the 14,410-foot summit and, two vertical miles lower, nearly touches the road leading to Paradise Lodge. I'm imagining the pain of climbing this massive relief, but Volken is raving about the uniqueness of skiing the Big Drop.

In truth, the volcanoes of Washington State dish out many big drops. On Mount Baker you can ski 8,000 vertical feet down the Boulder Glacier. On Mount Adams, the SW Chutes, White Salmon Glacier, and Avalanche Glacier Adams deliver 7,000- to 8,000-foot drops; Glacier Peak affords a 6,600-foot descent; even Saint Helens, which lost 1,500 feet of its vertical in 1981, offers more fall-line turning than Whistler/Blackcomb.

But the 10,500-foot rise before us makes the Nisqually/Fuhrer Finger route on Mt. Rainier, the longest ski descent in the Lower 48. I ask Volken, who guides in the Cascades, the Coast Range and the Alps, to put this run in context. He tells me Mount Logan, Saint Elias, and Mount Fairweather in Canada possess more vertical but less fall line skiing. The Vallee Blanche in France offers the same drop spread out over twice the distance (20 kilometers rather than Rainier's 10 km). The descent off Mount Blanc to Chamonix yields more vertical, but is virtually never in condition. Skiing Monte Rosa to Zermatt is about the only ski route I know of touching this one.

But unlike Europe where the low-altitude snow is often gone before the high snow is in shape, Rainier provides a relatively long season to bag this awesome vertical. We head up on a blistering day in mid June and camp beside the Wilson Glacier at 9200 feet.

While setting up camp, we debate when to leave for the summit. It's no easy decision. With nearly a 40 F temperature differential between the summit and the road, skiing corn snow up top means dealing with avalanche-prone glop down low. The most important criteria is to hit the steeps between 10,000 and 11,500 feet in the gully known as Fuhrer Finger at the right time. So rather than leaving for the summit at 2:00 a.m. like the mountaineers climbing elsewhere on the mountain, we exit camp at the genteel hour of 6:00 a.m. after a few cups of Joe and a scan of the morning paper.

With crampons, we climb easily up Fuhrer Finger noting that the 40- to 45-degree steeps will be magnificent when they soften, but the open crevasses on the upper mountain create problems. Roped up, we zig zag along the western flanks of the Nisqually Glacier, hoping the many snow bridges we are forced to cross are sound. After seven hours, we summit.

We drop off the top at 1:30 p.m. It's a hot day in Seattle, but at 14,000 feet, the snow's surface is peppered with fist-sized chunks of blue ice. Our skis vibrate wildly over the frozen chicken skin, our jaws rattle like jackhammers. At 13,000 feet the ice balls are only marble sized but the surface is still bulletproof. The slope ratchets from 23 to 25 degrees, which is two degrees too extreme. Fall on the glass-hard surface and there's no chance to stop a slide into the ubiquitous crevasses. We shoulder the skis, strap on crampons, and downclimb.

A thousand feet lower the sun has alchemized the snow. Skis are reattached and, with a measly 8,500 vertical feet to go, we start linking real turns. We reach the crux, which is coated with corn snow, and blast down it, it seems twice as easy as the ice above possessing half the pitch. Conditions are everything, Volken comments at the base of the Finger.

We drop onto the lower Nisqually Glacier and the corn snow gives way to ankle-deep then shin-deep sludge. Soon the snow is so saturated we're water skiing more than snow skiing. Volken loves it. Without a mixed bag of ski and mountaineering skills, this route will spank you.

Hours after leaving the summit and a few hundred vertical feet shy of the road, the snow runs dry. For fifteen minutes we walk beside a river of raging melt water. Then, we fight alder and vine maple, making our way up to the bridge marking the descent's end, a good Northwestern trip is simply not complete without a measure of bushwhacking. We walk onto the bridge, sweaty and mossy, and marvel at the expanse now separating us from the summit. That was one long ski run, I comment.

Volken corrects me. To him, the diverse elements ice, crevasses, steeps, glop, brush-- leave powerful impressions that transcend a simple ski run. That wasn't a ski run, that was a world class ski journey.

Details, details

Route: Nisqually Glacier and Fuhrer Finger
Location: Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
Best season: mid-May to mid-June
Maps: Mount Rainier West, Mount Rainier East (USGS 7.5-minute quads)
Permits: Climbing permits required ($15/person)
Park Information: 360-569-2211, www.nps.gov/mora/
Guidebook: Cascade Alpine Guide 1, by Fred Beckey (The Mountaineers)