Mt Rainier Summit Attempt

July 11th 2005

Climbers: Bill (leader), Rod, Nancy, Ed, Joe, Rob, Dan, and Lisa

"Mt. Rainier, amongst mountains, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one." — unknown

"Trust in your Crampons"— Thought while hanging on the edge of an steep icy slope with only my crampons and one inch of my ice axe adhering to the slippery slope.

There is always another day but there is not another lifetime (unless you believe in reincarnation)— Lisa

This summit attempt was more like a lesson in adapting to weather than summiting this formidable mountain. My second summit attempt turned back by high winds. Although, we didn't make it, it was an epic journey with a great group of people, none the less.

I had planned to go up on Friday evening and hike into Glacier Basin Camp which would cut down on the first days trek by three miles. The weather forecast called for 80% rain showers so I waited until Friday to decide whether I was going to go up early. Friday brought torrential rain to the Enumclaw area so I decided to meet up with everyone on Saturday. The weather forecast looked better for the weekend with only a 30% chance of rain.

On Saturday we met at the Climbers parking area at the White River camp ground. New territory for this die hard mt. biker, parking in the "climber's" parking lot. This year has been an adventure in learning to climb mountains. I explained to Bill that there is no such thing as a "rest step" when mt. biking up a mountain but the cool thing is you get to coast back down. Anyway, 8 climbers showed up and 5 sherpas to help carry our gear. How official, our own sherpas. With a little lighter pack the going was easy on the back. Our first day we were hiking 5000ft and about 6 miles to Camp Shuurman. It was a social event. Everyone positive and in good spirits as we made our way up the Glacier Basin trail to the Inter Glacier. At the base of the Inter Glacier we roped up and started really climbing. At Camp Curtis, the high point, before our descent down to Camp Shuurman we retrieved our gear from the sherpas, fed them chocolate chip cookies which along the way become chocolate chip crumbles. I think it would have been more impressive had they each recieved a handful of cookies instead of a handful of crumbs. I want to thank the sherpas for making our load lighter on the way up.

Then we descended down a muddy slick rock goat trail to the snowfield below Camp Shuurman, crossed the crevasse field, and ascended to the camp based below Steamboat Prow. We stopped, and talked to the Ranger and then climbed 400ft up to Emmons Flat which would be our base camp. During the course of our approach we it had rained at the parking area, snowed at the Inter Glacier and above, and thick fog. Not a good sign for things to come. We quickly set up camp. More colored tents in a sea of white land and sky. Our camp was surrounded by crevasses. Can you imagine getting up to pee in the middle of the night and falling into a crevasse? Anyway Bill and Nancy brought their circus tent and they built a snow table and benches under it for our kitchen, meeting, party tent. We cooked up our gourmet fair and headed off to bed.

I awoke in the morning to a coating of snow on my Tadpole tent. It had snowed a couple of inches overnight. It was warm inside my sleeping bag and it was hard to get out of it to see what the day would bring. It was cloudy, foggy, and snowing. It changed from hour to hour. We sent a team down to the rangers hut again to check the weather, hung out, and then got our gear ready for our midnight departure. It was a maybe. We'd get up and then decide whether a summit was possible.

At 6pm I got up briefly and opened my tent door to find a beautiful blue clear sky, all the surrounding peaks, and the summit of Mt. Rainier. I thought, we are going to make it. The bad weather had blown out and the good weather had arrived early. At 11pm we awoke to stars, ate, got ourselves geared up and set out. The first challenge was the fact that noone had been climbing recently because of the bad weather. Snow had fallen erasing all the tracks up the mountain so Bill would have to route find all the way to the summit. The second challenge was a combination of deep unconsilidated snow and ice. Bill said it was hard breaking trail. One minute sinking up to his knees in soft snow, the next walking across hard crusts of thick ice. We navigated around many large crevasses and then headed straight up the mountain a little too far to the right of the cooridor. At one point we were on a very steep section that was layered in ice. Bill was almost at the top of the section when his headlamp strap broke and his head lamp went skittering down the ice....and luckily stopped near a crevasse but close enough so that Ed could retrieve it. So there they clung to the icy slope. Our leader without a head lamp. Perched on a steep icy slope that ended at the edge of a crevasse. They worked to fix the strap. He put it back on his helmet and than a strong gust of wind blew it off his head again and away it skittered resting almost in the same place as before. This time Joe retrieved it and Ed gave Bill his headlamp. A leader without a head lamp is not a good thing. It was also at that point that I learned how to ice climb. I couldn't get more than an inch of my ice axe into the icy surface and didn't have the confidence to just trust the crampons. Nancy jumped in and said dig your ice axe into the slope and put the points of your crampons into the ice. I used that technique to get over a really hairy section. I actually lost my footing once and caught myself with the ice axe that pick that I had just placed. Wheew, adrenaline!!

So with that wind gust came a foreshadow of the rest of our climb. As the sun rose so did the wind velocity. We continued climbing into daylight. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger. Blasting us with ice crystals. Kind of like an exfoilating skin treatment you might get at a Day Spa (hmm, the possibilities of a Mountain Summit skin regimen). Anway, at about 12,500 ft one of our group was getting altitude sickness with nausea and shortness of breath. We determined that he couldn't continue. His rope team stepped up and would go down with him back to base camp. Bill, Ed, and I would continue to try to summit. Something that in my mind was looking less appealing as the wind blasted us from over the top of the mountain. But I wanted to get to the top of that mountain. We were so close and yet so far.... At 13000ft we rounded the top of the last big step before the 1400ft push to the summit. The wind was scouring. On the summit were snow devils and waves of snow blowing over the top of the mountain. I know our seasoned climbing leader would have continued to the summit. He was comfortable in this foreign environment but he heeded our concerns about the increasing wind velocity and our discomfort with continuing to the summit and hoping we could get back down. We gave it a great try and I don't think any of us couldn't have made it had the weather been better. We'd all been climbing and were ready for this epic ascent. But again, that's mountian climbing. Sometimes the decision to turn back is more important than making it to the summit. We still had an incredible approach in stunning scenery, a beautiful view from base camp, good company, and a great, mentally, and physically challenging ascent up to that point. So we turned around and headed back across the ice fields, through the deep warming snow, around the crevasses that were much more impressive in daylight. At night they were just dark shadows just beyond our headlamp lights. A shadowy maze of steep snow fields and crevasses.

We made it back down. The specs of our tents became larger and finally we bacl in base camp. Tired, hungry, and a little bit disappointed. After food, rest, and wrestling with our wind pummeled tents we were able to pack up and head down. A question we can answer. " How many climbers does it take to take down a 4 season tent in intense wind blasts. All of them. We wrestled with stakes, poles, and velcro to get Bill and Nancy's tent down as probably 40-70mph wind gusts hit us from the summit. Quite a chore after being up since 11pm the night before and climbing.

As we descended teams of climbers were coming up. We had virtually had that side of the mountain to ourselves. Now as the weather forecast was improving droves of climbers were coming up to attempt to summit. We had had a rare treat to have our own private side of the mountain for a couple of days.

The highlight of the trip was the long glissade down the Inter Glacier. Epic glissade. I learned about "glissade diapers" and glissading on a rope team. It was great the two heavier guys in front of me kept my pace up as the rope pulled me faster down the chute. Too much fun and a great rest after a lot of climbing and descending. We even glissaded over a tiny crevasse. At the bottom we stripped off our harnesses and climbing ropes. We were met by two OSATers— Dave and a friend. They had brought us water, peanut butter cookies, lemon poppy seed cake, pringles, and other assorted treats. How cool to be greeted by friends on the way down. After a good long break we headed down to Glacier Basin Camp.Ed and I were ready to get our packs off . We hit the trail at a fast pace making time down the trail. I actually was able to keep up with him this time. I passed all the beautiful scenery and wished I wasn't so tired and could take more time to smell the flowers but it had been a long weekend and I wanted my pack in the back of my truck, my feet in Birkenstocks, and that cold diet pepsi I had stashed in my truck for the end of the hike. At one point Ed and I both thought we were seeing a mirage of the end of the trail. I shook it off and said its just an illusion, keep hiking. Then I saw a headlight of a vehicle and at last we were at the trailhead. Tired from a lot of exersize and no sleep since the night before we shed our packs. The rest of the group was right on our heels. We toasted a good effort, commented on how our packs had a lot more hanging on the outside than when we started, and posed for the obligatory group photos and the jumped in our cars and hit the road for home and a warm comfy bed.

Bill and Nancy were great climb leaders. Nancy is amazing. She always has a smile and is always positive. Bill's even tempered and did a great job navigating up the mountain and breaking trail. I love their circus tent for the group. It kept us warm with all the stoves cooking and good conversation. Also I like that on this trip we had climb leaders who like to take a nap after summiting and before descending.

Things I learned on this climb:

How to really glissade

Intro to ice climbing.

The Mountain House Spicy Mexican Chicken and Rice is awesome.

Homeade powerbars taste better.

Blue Bags suck!!

Climbing Group and Sherpas at Start	Adjustments	Nance on Trail to Glacier Basin
Over the Hill and Through the Forest to.....	Glimpse of Things to Come	First Rest Stop
Glacier Basin View	Mt. Goat	Stormy
P7080019	Indian Paint Brush	Hiking Through Glacier Basin
Blue Bells	Rocky Trail to the Interglacier	Indian Paint Brush Along the Trail
Rocky Out Crop	Stone Sculpture	Friend's Climbing Party
Heading up the Inter Glacier	Stone, Bones of the Earth	Getting Ready to Climb Inter Glacier
Ridge Along Inter Glacier	Looking Down the Valley	Heiko and Friend's Climbing the Inter Glacier
Mist and Stone	Rocky Spires	Getting Ready to Rope Up
Ready to Climb	2nd Rope Team Climbing	Bill Setting Flags