I had the pleasure of guiding the Kautz Glacier route on the south side of Mt. Rainier from July 18-21, 2011.  We spent four days on the climb, spending one night at 8,200′ on the Wapowety Cleaver and two more at 10,500′ on the same feature (just below the aptly named Camp Hazard).  We were fortunate to experience pretty reasonable weather–given our current non-summer in the Cascades–and only had one day of mist and ping pong ball navigating conditions (and this was on the descent)!  Our summit day included a quick scamper underneath the Kautz Ice Cliff, some beautiful climbing through seracs at 13,300′, and a cloudless summit.  I’d like to say congratulations to the entire team for a job well done.  I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the tale.

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