Chutla 5-2-10

Our eighth Boealps outing was to the Tatoosh range just south of Mt Rainier. I woke up at 3:15 AM to meet at the park and ride to head down with a couple of teammates. We got to Longmire, just inside the Mt Rainier Park, at 6:30 AM to meet up with the rest of the team for the day. Our goal was Eagle peak, and if we had time, Chutla. The weather was kind of crummy but not horrible. It was a little on the humid side and there were low clouds shrouding all of the surrounding peaks. We geared up and hit the trail by 7 AM. We followed this really cool bridge.

There was no snow when we started and there was a nice, well defined path to follow. I started leading and started a little too fast. I burned myself out and so spent the rest of the day switching off with people as the slow leaders. About half way up through the trees, before crossing the stream, we hit snow. Several people were not feeling the greatest so we took breakscliffs up ahead. We turned towards what we thought was Eagle and started up, kicking steps. I love kicking steps in the snow because I feel like I can go at a better pace. Everyone is going a little more slowly and after you've kick some steps you get to take a break, so it works really well for me. After being really hot hiking up the trail, slowing down to kick steps got cold quickly, thanks in part to the wind, so we donned more clothing. There were some huge rolls of snow that were near where we started, they kind of reminded me of the big balls we would roll in elementary school. There would be snow boulders throughout the field, every recess kids would help roll them to make them bigger until they were too big for the group to roll - such fun times.

We were making our way up the mountain and got to a part that we had to traverse across with no real protection from avalanches, so we were trying to cross high. Unfortunately one of my team members had the flu and got hit really hard at this point, so we were trying to keep her warm until we could figure out what to do next. While we were waiting there, Aaron figured out that we were actually on the wrong mountain - what we thought was Eagle was actually Chutla, we were one mountain too far over. We were only a couple hundred feet from the summit but rather than splitting up the team, we decided to head back to the car together. We wouldn't have been able to see anything anyways so I think it worked out well. We headed back to the car at a steady pace with a few breaks for our flu stricken team member. The upper part of the trail was really pretty, like a little winter wonderland walking through the snow and trees. We finally got back to the cars and enjoyed our summit/car treats before going over the Z pulley for crevasse rescue. On the way home we stopped for dinner at a little restaurant in Ashford called the Highlander. I was not real impressed but it was some warm food after another long day in the mountains. Our next outing is Crevasse rescue down at Mt Rainier and I can't wait! over the water to the trail head and started heading up. along the way, but we still were making good time. We finally cleared the trees and had to start heading up the mountains. Still, we couldn't see any of the peaks, just some clouded

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