This week brought the biggest adventure of the year of Dan (so far). I apologize to the blog's regular readers for the journalyness of this post, but I want to capture what was done each day of the week in at least a little detail.
Last Saturday, I (Dan) flew from Richmond to Seattle for a week long trip to Washington. It was sad to say goodbye for a whole week.
I landed in Seattle at approximately 9:30pm Pacific Time, picked up my rental car from Hertz (which was 1,000 times better than EZ Rental or wherever it was that we rented the last time in Seattle), and was on my way to Kennewick. Fortunately, there was a program on the radio about Led Zeppelin for at least an hour, which made the drive more interesting. I got to my parents' house at 1:30am, said hello and goodnight, and went to bed.
Sunday morning my Dad showed me around their garden and his 300 pumpkins. Then we went to church. Sunday afternoon we went to Matt's house. Matt gave me the tour (I'd never been to his new house before). We played football in Matt's backyard, chatted, ate dinner and spice cake (a Mom Durst specialty), and played pinochle. It was my first time playing pinochle. Pinochle has to be the most confusing game ever invented. Even though I had no idea what I was doing and was pretty sleep deprived, Matt and I beat Mom and Dad.
Monday morning I loafed around at my parents' house for a while, then we went to Wal-Mart so that I could buy some hiking food (trail mix, bread, cheese, summer sausage, snickers, chocolate covered almonds, drink mix) and a fishing license. Monday afternoon I went salmon fishing for a couple hours with Matt. We didn't catch anything. I guess the middle of the afternoon is not a great time for fishing. Monday night we went swimming at my parents' house because it was so warm.
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| Salmon Fishing on the Columbia River |
Tuesday morning I woke up early, said goodbye to Mom and Dad, and met Matt again to go fishing for another two or three hours. Again, we didn't catch anything. After fishing, I started the drive to the headquarters of International Mountain Guides in Ashford, Washington. Shortly after leaving the Tri-Cities, Mt. Rainier could be seen in the distance.
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| Mt. Rainier on the Horizon |
I got to IMG at 2pm. I met our lead guide, Justin Merle, and another climber, Sebastian (who first introduced himself as Sebastian, but the next day he introduced himself to the remaining guides as Seb). Sebastian was Canadian in every way possible. The other climbers went to the wrong place and were an hour late. They were a team of six from Siemens: Ed (the American boss), Ryan (the American marketing cameraman), Gadi (the Israeli who organized the whole Siemens thing), Urs, Phillip, and Gregor (Germans). They had gotten Black Diamond to effectively sponsor them with a bunch of free gear. Some of their gear wasn't right, however, so some time was spent figuring out what would work, what needed to be rented, and what they needed to buy still. After we made sure we had all our gear (except for pants that the Siemens crew would need to buy in town the next morning), the eight of us went to dinner at the Copper Creek Inn, then returned to IMG to sleep in their tents. The tent was huge (probably a 6-man), on a platform, with astroturf inside, a cot, a pad, a 0 degree bag, a sidetable, and a garbage pail. Pretty posh camping.
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| View at IMG HQ |
Wednesday morning we woke up, went to breakfast at the Nisqually Inn, then went to Whitaker Mountaineering at 8am to buy softshell pants for the Siemens crew. Then we found out that Whitaker Mountaineering wasn't going to open at 8am. Somehow, the Siemens guys found somebody who knew the owner, so they called the owner who came and opened the store to sell them their pants. We were on our way.
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| Trail to Rainier: Ryan, Gadi, Sebastian, Nickle (Guide), Justin (Guide), Ed, Phillip, Me, Urs, Gregor |
We started hiking probably at about 10am. The first two miles are trails in the park, some paved, then not paved but still straightforward. Then we crossed Pebble Creek onto the Muir Snowfield.
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| Break spot before Pebble Creek |
The Muir Snowfield hike took probably six hours, with probably four breaks thrown in to eat, drink, and get some training on how to put on crampons, walk up and downhill efficiently, and self-arrest with an ice ax.
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| A break on the Muir Snowfield. Mt. St. Helens in the distance on the right. Mt. Hood seen faintly, smaller but pointier, on the left. All mountains on the horizon could be seen much better in-person. |
We arrived at Camp Muir (~10K feet), which has some permanent buildings, including guide shelters, a public shelter, and a few outhouses with pit toilets. It also has some weather equipment and a webcam that normally updates every five minutes. (I made plans with Kristen to stand in front of the webcam at 7pm Pacific Time Thursday evening because I didn't bring my phone, and it seemed like a good way to show her I was still kicking.)
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| Me at Camp Muir. The first night, we stayed in a room in the guide hut immediately behind me. |
I found a primo spot to sleep in the hut, the guides made us delicious burritos, and we prepared our packs for the summit-attempt, to begin at 3am. Ryan was already feeling the effects of altitude sickness, so he decided then to not go any higher. I took some sunset pictures and went to bed.
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| Sunset from Camp Muir, Mt. St. Helens in the distance |
At 3am, we woke up, got ready for the day, ate breakfast, drank a quart of water, and got started around 4am. We gathered on the Cowlitz Glacier just off the ridge from Camp Muir, where Justin gave us some training on traveling on a rope team. Justin was tied to me, then Sebastian.
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| The Cowlitz Glacier at sunrise. When we first gathered on the glacier (out of the frame on the left, it was still the middle of the night). The trail traveled in an arch from left to right to that notch in the rocks toward the right (Cathedral Gap). |
We set off in the dark across the Cowlitz Glacier. This was easy hiking. We did cross a few small crevasses (probably all less than two-feet wide), but off to the sides huge crevasses could be seen. We crossed up, over, and down Cathedral Gap, which was a little tiring, and walking on rocks in crampons apparently takes some practice. Once we were down from Cathedral Gap, we were on the Ingraham Glacier at a spot called Ingraham Flats (~11K feet). During our break at Ingraham Flats, Ed decided to turn back.
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| Sunrise view from Ingraham Flats. The peak is Little Tahoma, third highest peak in Washington. |
From Ingraham Flats, we crossed over our first bigger crevasses, using an aluminum ladder with a few 2x6s tied on to cross. We hurried through a section that has some ice and rock-fall danger onto the Disappointment Cleaver, another rock ridge. Going up the Cleaver was pretty tiring, and there were a few points that felt a little exposed (narrow trail with a decent drop).
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| View looking out (Eastish) from on top of Disappointment Cleaver. |
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| View looking Northish from the top of Disappointment Cleaver. This drop and all of these crevasses were directly below the next section of the trail. |
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| The trail up the mountain from Disappointment Cleaver. You can see the boot tracks heading up, then some zig-zagging switchbacks toward the right, with a couple block dots toward the middle-top, who are climbers coming down from a morning summit. |
At this point (~12K feet), I was starting to feel tired. Not wiped out, but not 100%. I heard a guide further up the mountain radio to our guide that nobody stumbly should go any higher, as the winds were too strong and the path too sketchy to be safe. Not inspiring. Urs and Phillip decided to turn back. On we went.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the next two sections of the mountain. I was having a hard time figuring out where to carry my camera for easy access, and for the next 2K feet, there was no time for picture taking. The zig-zagging on single-track trails across icy slopes above bottomless crevasses was unnerving. By the time we got to our next break at 13.5K feet, the weather was starting to turn. Wind gusts were knocking me off balance. We crossed many more crevasses, some by stepping over, some using snowbridges, at least one more with a ladder. There was one section with a fixed rope to hold onto because the trail was too narrow and the fall consequences too critical.
During our break at 13.5 feet, Gregor decided to turn back. I was seriously thinking about it too. I felt exhausted, sort of sick to my stomach (altitude sickness), and just generally really freaked out by walking up steep icy slopes in 40mph winds, with decreasing visibility, with gaping crevasses all around. But Justin said, "I think you can do it if you think you can do it. If you're going to go back, now's the time to do it, but I think you can do it." I figured that Justin knew better than me (he's climbed the Mountain 155 times, and Everest 7 times), so I said if he thought I could do it, then I'd keep going.
The next ~900 feet was intense. Easily the most physically intense experience of my life. The clouds came down, my glacier glasses were all fogged, everything was grey and windy. Snow was blowing all around off the ground. Switchbacks up icy slopes with literally no trail to follow between the marker wands--just trying to spot Justin's crampon tracks in the ice and follow the direction of the rope to know which way to go. Switchbacks through deep snow. Some deep snow that kept collapsing underneath me as I desperately tried to move higher (I think I had gotten off track due to the aforementioned issues). Finally, Justin pointed out the crater rim rocks in the distance. We climbed to the top, over the crater rim into the crater, and dropped our packs. I was really hoping for a spot protected from the weather, but there was none.
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| Me on top of Mt. Rainier during a white-out. |
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| Gadi, Sebastian, and Me on top of Mt. Rainier with crater rim rocks in background. Guides Justin Merle and Peter Dale brought us to the top. |
By this point, I was toast. Exhausted. Freezing. No appetite for anything, including the Snickers I brought. We were officially on top of the mountain, but the official highest crater-rim spot on the mountain was another ~1 mile away across the crater. Justin said that we weren't going to cross the crater due to the terrible weather and the fact that Gadi and I weren't feeling so hot. After some more pictures (including pictures of Gadi and Sebastian holding a Siemens banner), we headed back down.
The next two hours were miserable. I felt so sick. If I could have puked, I would have, but instead I just had a constant sense of almost needing to puke for two hours. My glasses were totally fogged up and everything still was grey. I couldn't see any detail on the ground, so I stumbled a few times as I misjudged the distance into the footsteps in the snow and caught myself on the slope with my ice ax. I kept apologizing to Justin, who kept telling me that I couldn't fall down (which I knew). Exhausted. I hooked my crampons on each other and fell again, catching myself with my ice ax. Sebastian was getting nervous with all of my falling down (he was tied to me, after all). Interestingly, the more exhausted I became, the less I cared about crevasses and long, exposed traverses across steep slopes. I just wanted to get down lower as quickly as possible. A few other guides on the mountain were taking down ladders as soon as we crossed them, and Justin was pulling up wands as he went. We were the last climb of the season.
Finally back at the Disappointment Cleaver (~12K feet), I forced down some dried mango, drank some water, found out that more water was going to be left for us further down the mountain, and drank some more water. Climbing back down the Cleaver, I began to feel much, much better. Back at Ingraham Flats (~11K feet), I drank another quart of water, and was feeling pretty good.
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| Back at Ingraham Flats with Little Tahoma in view. |
We crossed back over Cathedral Gap and the Cowlitz Glacier to make it back to Camp Muir. The whole thing took about 11-12 hours. I was thrilled to still be alive (seriously).
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| Inside the public hut at Camp Muir immediately after coming back from the summit. |
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| After the summit at Camp Muir. Mt. Adams on the left, Mt Hood in the middle, Mt St Helens on the right. |
I drank a bunch of water, took some ibuprofen, ate some snickers, and hung out in my sleeping bag. Every way I moved gave me a cramp somewhere in my body. They made us dinner of shells and cheese with broccoli and sausage. After dinner, I was feeling pretty good again. I went out to wait for 7pm for Kristen to see me on the webcam.
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| Sunset from Camp Muir looking at Mt Adams |
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| Sunset from Camp Muir, Mt St Helens on the left |
Turns out that the webcam wasn't functioning. I hung out for thirty minutes outside talking to one of the guides who was taking the ladders down behind us. He was really impressed. He said it was the worst summit weather of the season. That made me feel better, because I really was feeling like I had been a big sissy up there.
Friday morning, we packed up, ate pancakes and bacon, and headed back down the Muir Snowfield to the van and back to Ashford.
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| Sunrise at Camp Muir, Mt Adams in distance |
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| Headed back down the Muir Snowfield |
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| View back toward the Mountain with bushes (blueberries?) turning red |
In Ashford, we debriefed, were given certificates for summiting or participating (as applicable), and Gadi, Sebastian, and I signed the summit board for 2016. We took showers for the first time since Tuesday night, said our goodbyes, and headed our separate ways.
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| 2016 Summit Board. Can you find me? |
I spent Friday evening at Heather's house in Olympia. She whipped us at Scrabble, with words such as "qis" and other words that aren't really words in any context other than Scrabble that I now can't remember. I flew back home on Saturday. It was great to see Kristen and the kids again. I think I'll climb another mountain sometime, though maybe something easier than Rainier, or at least with better weather.
