I’m sitting in my easy chair at home, looking at my little boy smiling as he falls asleep in his cradle next to me. I feel so far removed from the events of the last several days, but my legs, which are still painfully sore to the touch, remind me every time I move of the adventure I just left behind a few miles south of Seattle. I’ll try to give you the trip, in as interesting and sharp detail as I can, starting from Saturday morning, when we left Rainier Basecamp and the comfy confines of Whittaker Bunkhouse.
Todd and I woke up around 7 on Saturday morning after a restless night of sleep, grabbed a biscuit and a waffle apiece at the little coffee shop, and then shouldered our packs to head over to the waiting white 25 passenger bus with trailer that would haul our group to Paradise, and our official start of the climb. We made Paradise shortly after 9 and found ourselves shrouded in thick cloud cover and very uphappy to have opted for shorts instead of long pants. The weather had turned off very cool under the clouds and we shivered a bit as we strapped on our packs and headed out. Our guides were at the front and back of our group of 9 novice mountaineers, and they set a very slow and methodical pace up the first few hundred feet of paved pathway leaving the parking lot. The higher we climbed, the thicker the fog became, but the more our bodies heated up and adjusted to the cold. We took our first stop on some rocks that afforded a great view of the lower glaciers on the mountain, but in the dense fog, the best we got was to hear the roar of distant waterfalls thundering off the mountain a couple miles away. After 15 minutes, the allotted time for each break to grab a snack, fix any layering issues to moderate body heat, and get our legs ready to go again, we strapped back up and headed off to our next break about an hour later, at Pebble Creek. Here we put on our crampons (ice cleats that strap on your boots) for the first time and headed onto the Muir Snowfield. A snowfield is similar to a glacier, though generally with less packed ice. This being September though, it was pretty heavily packed and gave you the same feel as being on a glacier. Our final 2500 feet or so up to Camp Muir were on the snowfield and about a 1/3 of the way up, we made it above the low lying clouds and got the see Rainier and the surrounding Tatoosh Range for the first time. If you’ve never seen mountaintops above the clouds before, it really is a sight to behold.
As we got closer and closer to Camp Muir, it became painfully obvious the elevation was changing. Not only were our lower bodies burning from the climb, our backs were sore from the weight of all our necessary gear and our lungs were having to work harder the higher we went. We arrived @ Muir, our home for a few hours, at around 3 and set about preparing our sleeping quarters (Todd and I were crammed in the bottom left corner of a 3 level set of glorified shelves that doubled as bunks), repacking our summit gear, “cooking” our dehydrated Mountain House meals, and chatting anxiously with the other would be ascenders to the top of “The Mountain,” as the locals call it. We met with Rob, our lead guide for the trip, and he informed us we’d be getting up sometime between 12-1 AM and be hiking within an hour of waking up. Many went to bed by around 5:30-6:00, but Dave (a guy in his 50’s from Denver), Tom (a 25 yr old from Long Island), and I sat outside looking to the south as the sunset above the clouds gave the highest of the Ring of Fire volcanoes an errie and beautiful pinkish hue. From our vantage point, you could easily make out Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood, almost 100 miles away. I think you could even see Mt. Jefferson, which is south of Hood and into central Oregon, but we weren’t sure. We headed to bed around 7 and everyone spent the next 5 1/2 hours laying awake, staring at the bunk above us, listening to a few of the lucky ones snoring (I was lucky for about 90 minutes total), and nervously wondering if the gale force winds outside would die down before it was time to climb.
Our guides burst into the bunkhouse around 12:30 with headlamps glaring and rousted everyone out. The wind had died down, the clouds were gone, and it was an almost balmy 40 degrees, at least balmy for being above 10000 ft! We were harnessed up, roped in, and had packs on by 1:35. I was on a rope with Todd, Frank from Memphis and our guide, Geoff. We stepped onto the Cowlitz Glacier just behind the first rope team and headed off for a crazy long day. It was eerily still and almost peaceful walking across the glacier and all you could hear was the steady breathing of other climbers and the ice crunching beneath our crampons. We gained about 200-300 feet across the crevasse covered Cowlitz and promptly came to our first climb, a 400 or so foot rock scramble up Cathedral Gap. While most of the moutain is glaciated, there are two distinct areas of volcanic rock and sand. The sand isn’t so bad, but walking across the rocks in mountaineering boots and crampons is a sprained ankle waiting to happen. Once on top of the gap, we turned northwest and headed across a fairly easy section of ice called The Flats. Off in the distance, and about 1000 ft up, we could make out tiny lines of headlamps, criss-crossing their way across what many consider to be the crux of the climb, Disappointment Cleaver. In order to reach the Cleaver, we had to walk as silently as possible below an area of loose rocks known for its abundance of rock falls (we actually saw one up close and personal on the way back down when a rock about the size of a refrigerator came thundering down the mountain about 150 ft in front of us). Once safely, and aided by climbing ropes stapled into the rock, to the other side of the rockfall, we started the 1000 ft rock scramble to the top of Disappointment Cleaver. For the better part of an hour, all we could see were rocks, headlamps directly above us, and the occasional spark of steel crampons scraping against volcanic rock. It was a gut wrenching climb, and one that certainly took alot out of everyone.
At our next break at the top of the Cleaver, we threw on our heavy gloves and parkas, and were thankful to have put on long underwear beneath our snow pants. It was here the guides got in our faces and very seriously asked each one of us personally if we wanted to turn back. The honest answer for most, Todd and me included, was yes, and 3 of the 9 decided they’d had enough and were heading back down. That left us with 6 climbers and 3 guides still stretching for the summit. And the next section was indeed a stretch. Over the course of the summer, the route up the moutain is constantly changing as ice and snow melt and the glaciers crack and open up crevasses hundreds of feet deep. In order to get to Emmons Glacier, and the final push to the top, we had to cross over several of those crevasses, and two in particular required a running belay system and a ladder with wooden planks across it. Perhaps the most unnerving part of the whole experience was walking across a ladder no more than 15 inches wide over 200 ft of open space with the wind whipping and swirling all around. On the way up, it was easier because it was still dark, but on the way down, when you could see thousands of feet down the mountain, it was quite harrowing. We made it past the technical part of the climb and started up the final 2000 ft or so to the top by switchbacking across Emmons Glacier. A switchback on a glacier is basically a glorified footpath you hope and pray will allow you to dig in your crampons and not fall deeper than a couple foot into the powdery snow hidden just below the ice in many places. There were several times Todd and I both fell as we plunged our ice ax handles into the snow to try and balance ourselves and they buried all the way up to the top of the ax head. Our third and final break was in the midst of Emmons Glacier and we got to watch the sunrise from about 13500 ft. It was a spectacular view and I’m certain we’d have enjoyed it more had it not been blowing snow so hard it stung our faces, or had we not been gasping for air, or had we not had to dig our crampons into the side of the mountain just to sit there since it was so steep one wrong move could have easily started us on a slide of 5000-7000 ft over several cliff faces and crevasses before we reached the bottom in a broken and bloody pile. So yeah, it was a beautiful sunrise!
After a short break, we shouldered our packs for the final push to the top. In about 45 minutes, we finally crested and dropped down into the volcanic crater of the summit. The entire crater is considered the summit, but if you are feeling particularly adventurous (and stupid, in my opinion), you can walk the 1/2 mile across the crater and sign your name at Columbia Crest, which is a bit higher on the bowl of the summit than where we were sitting in the snow, gasping for air and trying not to vomit due to altitude sickness. Due to our current state at the time, Todd and I opted to sit and rest with the majority of our summit party while a couple guys walked on over. I was happy to hear when they returned the view wasn’t great and it wasn’t worth the effort! Speaking of effort, we had summitted but still had to muster the strength to make it back down to Muir, and the make the final 4500 ft drop in a little over 4 miles back down to Paradise.
I’ll fast forward through that part, since this blog is already crazy long, but suffice it to say, when we returned to Paradise after 13500 ft of elevation change in windchills down to -24, we were more than happy to sit on the bus and share some laughs with our weary companions.
It was an adventure of epic proportions for us, and one I’m certain we won’t fully understand until weeks, or even months from now. I’ll close with the following comments from Bette Filley, author of The Big Fact Book About Mount Rainier, taken from her conversation with Lou Whittaker, founder of RMI, and others. Filley says, “When someone tells you they’ve climbed Mt. Rainier, be impressed. Mount Rainier is considered the longest endurance climb in the conterminous states…It requires determination, stamina, strong legs, stronger lungs, and a good cardi-vascular system. It will probably be the most physically demanding experience of most people’s lives…It truly is the accomplishment of a life time. If you can climb Rainier, you can do anything!”

Todd and I woke up this morning @ 12:30 to begin our summit attempt of Mt. Rainier. We made the summit, 4500 higher than where we started, at 8:14 AM PCT. We’re exhausted and heading to bed. I’ll give you full details soon. In the meantime, enjoy a couple pics…

Apprently my blog last night was a bit too poop filled for the taste of some, so I’ll tone it down tonight. Today was our first time actually up on Rainier doing any hiking. We arrived @ Paradise around 9 and started the 2+ miles climb with an elevation gain of around 1200 feet up to the first snow field we came to. Our objective was to learn how to traverse ice and snow with and without crampons, learn how to self arrest (stop oneself from sliding down a ravine to your death using just an ice axe), learn how to group arrest (save a member of your group who is sliding to his or her death or happens to fall down into a crevasse), learn how to climb while harnessed into a rope with 3 other guys, and lots of other stuff. We were on the mountain for about 7 hours and had a great time. The temps were in the 60s and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. From our vantage point around 6500 ft we could easily make out Mt. Adams, Mt. St Helens, and even Mt. Hood, all the way down in Oregon. We took alot of pics but they do very little to show how incredibly beautiful this area truly is. Once our guides felt we were proficient enough in all our skills, we packed up our backpacks and headed back down. There are alot of things to get used to when climbing a mountain of this magnitude. Your mountaineering boots are very similar in feel to ski boots, and after a day of wearing them, they can get very tiring and cumbersome to your feet. Even though you’re walking on several feet of snow and ice, it can still be hot enough to dehydrate you and even give you hear exhaustion. Since you’re surrounded by snow, taking off your sunglasses for even a minute or so will give you a headache that won’t quite. It is also very easy to get sunburned with all the light reflecting off the snow. The skills we learned were very interesting and Todd and I are both thankful to have gone through the course before attempting this trek.  

We got back Paradise around 4 and headed back down to basecamp for a shower and some pizza. The guys we’re climbing with are all pretty cool and we had a good time sitting around the table tonight chatting with a few of them. Once we got our pizza, after waiting over an hour for the poor girl working behind the counter by herself to get them made by hand and take care of everything else for the 30 or so other customers, we ate quickly, chatted some more, and then made our way back to the room to get packed for our trip to Camp Muir tomorrow and summit the next day. Out packs are insanely heavy with all the extra gear we have to bring in case of inclement weather, but we’re excited to be heading out tomorrow and hopeful for a good night’s rest. Don’t look for a blog tomorrow night, as we’ll be on the mountain. I’ll hopefully fill you in on Sunday night after a successful summit day. Keep us in your prayers and make sure to pray for a great adventure!

We headed to bed in our little room @ Whittaker’s Bunkhouse around 10 PM…that’s 1 AM in the good ole Eastern Time Zone. We figured we’d sleep as long as we could possibly handle in order to rest up from a long day of travel and be well prepared for our impending strenuous journey up the mountain. However, many things conspired to change that best laid plan. First of all, at about 4:30 AM (which is right around the time I usually get up back in Indiana) I woke with a start and realized if I didn’t pee in the next 17 seconds or so, the cleaning lady would have some issues with my little single bed. So, I jumped up, walked the 29 inches from my bed to the toilet and found sweet relief. What I also found when I returned to my bed was that Todd, in the bed across the room (really only about 2 feet from me) was wide awake and had been for quite a while. Seems the poor Captain woke up hours earlier and saw light coming in through the blinds and figured it must be almost sunrise. What he didn’t realize in his sleep deprived state was the porchlight just outside the room was and had been burning brightly all night long. What he thought was God waking up the world was actually a 60 watt bulb robbing him of precious sleep. This was, of course, for me incredibly hilarious. Since we were both already awake and anxious to visit the facilities multiple times to get rid of any lingering effects from our omelets, we laid in our respective beds chatting for a bit and taking turns in the WC. Todd took a bit too long on one of his turns, so I threw on my sandals and headed out into the early morning mist to see about another toilet for my abusing pleasure. There were none I could find unlocked, so, after contemplating the downfalls to just taking care of business in the parking lot while it was still dark, I said a quick prayer for strength and headed back to the room. Todd was finished by this time and I was just getting started. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details and I’ll go ahead to breakfast, as I don’t want this blog to be all about poo, just enough to make some of you queasy!

Breakfast was at the little coffe shop/diner attached to the bunkhouse and the two early 20 something girls behind the counter were a little too happy about being up before the sun. They did however, recommend a great breakfast sandwich and waffle. After cleaning our plates, we walked to the grocery store down the street for some supplies and then headed out thru the fog in the direction of Paradise. Once we reached an elevation of about 3000 ft, the clouds parted and we got some of the most amazing views you can imagine. Rainier is seldom sunny, and even less often situated under cloudless blue skies. Today was one of those exceptions. We stopped at several little turnoffs, did the obligatory tourist thing, and final arrived @ the Paradise Inn. From the visitor’s center in the parking lot, Rainier looks so close you can reach out and touch it, while in reality, the summit is still several miles away. We new we needed to get back down before too long, so after a quick stop at Reflection Lake for some more breathtaking pictures, we turned the car around and headed back down the mountain and into the thick nasty cloud cover again.

We dropped off our stuff, asked the same cheery girls behind the counter where we should grab some lunch, and headed off, per their recommendation, to a brand new little place called The Wild Berry. It’s a little diner a few miles from Whittaker’s and they serve up a mean gyro. As we ate our lunch, we watched with growing amusement as the owner of the store, a small Asian man, struggled like the dickens to get his new neon “Open” sign to hang in the window. It was a classic showdown of man vs. machine that dragged on for most of our meal. As we neared the end, he finally got it set and promply walked out into the street to look back and make sure everything was as it should be. It was about this time our waitress, who had messed up Todd’s very manly menu choice of grilled cheese, decided to smile and stare at the Captain a little bit more than we felt was necessary. He thought about throwing his marriage away for a toothless tattooed table tart for a few fleeting moments, but then we just decided to get out of Dodge. As we drove back toward the bunkhouse, the Captain said something that assured me his marriage and devotion to his wife and son would never be in jeopardy. While most guys would tell you they had to take a dump, see a man about a horse, or some other clever way of letting you know their bowels were moving, ole Todd told me he was getting “poopie pains,” which are apparently the early warning signs a #2 may soon be in order. I gave him multiple times to change his silly little girl antics and phrasing, but he simply giggled and kept repeating that awful 3 year old phrase over and over again. “Bethany and Jack, your man isn’t going anywhere!”

Once back at Whittaker Mountaineering, where we are staying, we picked up our rental gear, packed up all our stuff, and headed over to meet the rest of our group and our guides for the first time. Geoff (yes, with a “geo”) is a first year guide from Vermont and Peter is a veteran with about 20 years experience on the mountain. The other guys in our group include a guy from Denver named Dave, a father son combo from California named John and Wiley, two brothers from Long Island named Tom and John, and a random truck driver from Memphis named Frank who actually drove to camp in his semi after delivering a load in Yakima.  They’re all pretty nice guys and seem to be in comparable shape to the Captain and me. The guides checked over our gear, gave us some basic info, showed us how to use our crampons and avalanche rescue beacons, and spent about 15 minutes helping a certain member of our group who claimed to be an expert rock climber get his climbing harness on. He was a victim of his own game, a game the Captain and I call Peacocking. Peacocking is when someone struts around in front of others trying to prove, either by looking or talking the part, they are much better and more experienced at something than they actually are. Peacocking happens all over the place but there are few places it is more apparent than when a group of guys are getting ready to experience something new with a group of relative strangers. It’s almost like there is this massize jockeying for position to see who is going to be the most respected, revered, talked about, etc. person on the trip. I find it all very amusing to watch, and even more so when the peacock climbing “expert” can’t get his gear on the right way. Oh well, no harm done, except perhaps to an ego.

After we finished, Todd and I went down to the gas station for some more snacks and then headed out to The Copper Kettle, another little hole in the wall, for dinner. It was satifactory, if not a little bland, and we headed back to the room with little fanfare. We’ve packed and repacked our gear for summit school tomorrow and we’re going to try and get caught up on some much needed sleep before we head out in the morning. Sweet dreams and God bless.

Rainier from Reflection Lakes