“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”                     –Edward Abbey

Click here to go to the photo album for this day

Alpine Start. Whoever created that word must have wanted some cool-sounding way to justify them getting up at an ungodly hour to climb a mountain in the cold. After not really getting any sleep until 11:30 PM, we woke up and headed over to the tent for “Breakfast” of Ramen noodles. Wanting enough carbs for the ascent, I went in for seconds.  John & Sumit decided to hang back at camp so the summit ascent team was composed of Will, Brian, Rhonda, and myself along with our guides Craig, Mike & Luke. The temp was very pleasant throughout our climb, maybe around 40-50 deg & there was initially no precip nor wind. I was the last person on Mike’s rope team of 3, with Will & Craig in front of our team & Rhonda & Luke bringing up the rear.

The Disappointment Cleaver is another high rockfall danger zone so we wanted to ascend it quickly without stopping. Unfortunately we got stuck behind a slow moving large group for awhile until we passed them. So much for getting through this quickly. What was especially frightening was that we heard 3 thundering rumbling sounds from the upper mountain within the course of 15 minutes – large rockfalls the likes of which our guides had never heard of on this mountain. Luckily they all were on the backside of the mountain out of our path, but it definitely spooked us. Craig considered turning us back at this point, but since we were almost through the danger zone we decided to continue on.

It was around here that Rhonda & Luke turned back, so we were now 3 climbers & 2 guides. Things proceeded well after that, though we had to cross around 6 ladders that were suspended across crevasses. It was good that we were climbing in the dark, because we realized just how large some of these things were on the way down when we could see them! I unfortunately don’t have any photos of this part of the climb since it was dark. I was also told not to take photos while on a rope team because I’d need a free hand to self-arrest if a teammate fell. Also in case you haven’t tried to manage camera settings and taking photos while you’re roped to the person in front of you while exerting yourself at altitude climbing a mountain, turns out it’s really freaking hard!

The weather deteriorated as we gained elevation. It started snowing & coupled with the fact that one of the ladders over a particularly hairy crevasse looked like it would come loose, along with the high rockfall danger, the guides made the decision that it wasn’t safe enough to continue on & so we turned back at around 12,700 ft. It was definitely frustrating not being able to summit, especially after clearing the most technical parts of the ascent, but if these ultra-experienced guides are making that call, then it was probably worse than it looked to us. We got stuck going down when a slowly ascending group bottlenecked a narrow region of the route.

After waiting for about 20 minutes we continued our descent back to camp while dawn broke. This was when we got our first look at the upper mountain, and the views were utterly gorgeous. I regret not being able to take photos, but the rope team was unwilling to stop due to the rock & ice fall danger. I did manage to convince them to stop at the bottom of the Disappointment Cleaver however and was able to take the panorama at the top of this page. It’s really another world on a mountain. Believe me when I say that that photo was not even close to being the best view from up there. It was one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.

Once back at camp, we dropped our packs & rested for a couple of minutes before packing up & heading back down to Camp Muir where we took a 45 minute break before heading down the Muir Snowfield to Paradise Parking lot. The descent involved some glissading(though the guides discouraged this for some reason) and a lot of plunge stepping(large bounding steps) through the snow. Unfortunately some of the snow on the Muir snowfield was pretty icy, which tripped me up & caused me to lose my balance a number of times. I really feel that the downhill is the most treacherous part of any climb. You’re exhausted & gravity is doubling any mistake that you make with your footing so injuries are far more likely.

 

 

Getting back to Paradise was a relief. The ascent wasn’t too bad, but the descent was brutal. Coupled with the fact that we hadn’t really gotten any sleep before the ascent, we were really tired. Unfortunately I still had a 2 hour drive home to Portland, so it wasn’t yet over for me! After reaching IMG HQ, we were awarded our “close but not quite” certificates(which hilariously have more commending wording than the actual summit certificates) before the team went their separate ways.

 

 

So we didn’t summit, but I got everything I wanted out of the experience. With the low snow this year the mountain became much more technical & showed many of the hazards encountered on much larger peaks so this was an ideal condition for learning. The experience with traveling on a rope team, cramponing, and crevasse traversals will be invaluable for larger mountains. I plan to attempt Rainier again during a higher snow year when summit success rates will be higher. I now feel like Elbrus in Russia might be a good climb for next year… so look forward to that report! I want to thank all of the guides for sharing their significant experience with us, and to the rest of the team for undertaking the challenge of climbing Rainier!