Click here to go to the photo album for this day

We had a big surprise waiting for us this morning as we met our guides. I have no idea how this happened, but it turns out our guides are all-stars. All of them are veteran guides, and three of them have climbed Everest. One of the guides, Mike Hamill literally wrote the book on “Climbing the Seven Summits”. He’s a total badass who’s climbed Everest 5 times & laps the Seven Summits guiding. It’s a privilege to be able to climb with and learn from people with such staggering experience. This will be Craig’s 200th summit on Rainier!

After meeting the guides, we piled our stuff into the trailer behind the van & took off to Paradise parking lot. We didn’t waste much time in unloading & prepping our gear at the parking lot, which was way more crowded than it was in the winter. Also all of the snow had melted so it looked like a totally different place. Due to this being such a low snow year, the wildflowers had all bloomed early & made for a really picturesque view. Of course we quickly rose above the elevation at which vegetation can live but it was nice to see some colors starting out.

As we neared the Muir Snowfield, Barry and Roxanne decided to turn back, leaving us with 6 climbers and 4 guides – a pretty incredible ratio! Once on the Muir Snowfield, it was just a long slog up to Camp Muir. The boring panoramic views of the clouds & world below didn’t help to motivate us in the slightest…

We managed to keep a pretty good pace and reached Camp Muir in the early afternoon. The place was much busier than it was on the winter trip(completely deserted). Our accommodations were luxurious – we got to stay in the IMG building which had nice bunks(made of wood, no mattresses here!). It stayed warm through the night though, allowing us to get a good night’s sleep. Dinner was cooked by master chef Mike and was incredibly delicious. I’ve come to expect great food from IMG, but I think our food on this trip was even better than normal. I don’t know how I’m expected to go back to dehydrated backpackers’ meals after being spoiled like this…

Continue to Day 2 – The Ingraham Glacier