Mt. Rainier - Fuhrer Finger
Route Details
Area - Mt. Rainier, WA
Access - Access to Fuhrer Finger is via the Paradise area. Paradise is accessible year round, although only from 9am-5pm during the winter months. There is quite a bit of red tape (permits) involved, although it is much easier before the high season starts around late May.
Total Trip Time - Single day push is possible but not usual. Total roundtrip climb/ski trip time usually 12-15 hours.
Total Distance - 13 miles
Main Ski descent - 9000 ft
Elevation Gain/Loss - 9500 ft
Max Slope Angle - 40-45 °
Guides
onXBackcountry (shows variation going to the Nisqually bridge)
Local Beta - Copper Creek Inn is a great spot to grab food on the way out of the park. Their restuarant used to have an espresso milkshake that made the drive back a lot more tolerable. Recently you can get an off-menu coffee milkshake.
Trip Report 5/20/2023
Fuhrer Finger is a super classic line, and being one of the 50 classic ski descents of North America makes it high priority on many North America ski mountaineering bucket lists. Fuhrer Finger offers 9k feet of fall line skiing from the summit of Mt. Rainer, and a bonus 1k extra feet of descent if you go all the way to the Nisqually bridge. I had climbed Mt. Rainier many times before, but this was the first time I had climbed the Fuhrer Finger route.
Antoine and I got a leisurely start late Saturday. We parked and permitted up at Paradise and then headed up the mountain. Rather than camp at Castle Rock I had decided to try camping for the night camp just between the Wilson and Nisqually glaciers, right below the Wilson Cleaver. This spot is more direct and avoids the steep ascent onto Castle Rock which is the typical camping spot for the routes in the Wilson/Fuhrer area. The downside is some crevasse navigation on the approach and little bit of exposure to rock/ice/snowfall from the cleaver and Nisqually icefall zone.
We got to our camp spot without much trouble. There were two tricky spots, one area where the crevasses had started to open between 7k and 8k ft. on the lower Nisqually, and another tricky spot just above this section where it got steep enough that we had to carry our skis for a short section.
Given the late start, we arrived in camp somewhat later than I would have liked, sometime around 5:30pm. We got the tent pitched without too much trouble, this time trying out The North Face Mountain 25 tent. I had used an earlier version of this tent on Denali and so was familiar and confident with the design, although it is definitely a bit heavy for a two person alpine tent.
We got an alpine start, and by 3:30 am we were leading the main chute of Fuhrer Finger. We broke trail until around 11k ft. when a group of younger girls passed us and continued up on their skis from above the Fuhrer Finger.
Once onto the Nisqually we transitioned to skis but then made a transition back to crampons when the slope steeped and the exposure to cravesses increased. The crevasses in the upper Nisqually were massive with a couple so deep we couldn't see the bottom.
As we approached the summit we found ourselves in a whiteout, encircled in a lenticular cloud that had formed around the upper 1k ft of the mountain. Once at the summit we quickly transitioned and then headed down, following our tracks.
The ski down was fun, especially the upper mountain once we exited the clouds. Lower down on the Fuhrer Finger the snow had already become isothermal and was a wet mess. We got back to our tent, packed up quickly, and headed back to the car at Paradise. First descent of Fuhrer Finger successful!