Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Mount Ararat (winter)
Great views of Mt Rainier’s Sunset Amphitheater before an afternoon arrival of the ‘wall of wet’.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Nov 25, 2017
- Winter Scramble - Mount Ararat
- Mount Ararat
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Due to the recent deluge of warm weather the trail was snow free to just before the creek crossing at ~4100’ (our departure point for ‘the winter route’). As expected, recent rains have melted/consolidated much of the snow, but snowshoes were still required to avoid punching through. The steep, wind blown ridge near the summit had extremely hard snow conditions making our ice axes and the aggressive claws on our snowshoes absolutely essential for a safe descent (along with our helmets).
Great views of Mt Rainier’s Sunset Amphitheater before an afternoon arrival of the ‘wall of wet’. Cold and precipitation free weather lasted much of the day allowing for a very enjoyable ascent, followed by timely descent (the rains arrived at ~2pm during our hike out). Total time was ~8.5 hours with 4.5 hours for the ascent and a half hour on the summit. An interesting phenomenon was the free flowing stream at ~5200’ below the southern aspect of Ararat (possibly caused by the recent rains). Photos of this stream as well as other photos from this and other trips at this venue can be seen here.