We left Paradise on a sunny morning afternoon for Camp Muir. As we approached the mountain, it could be touched with our fingertips being so close in the sky. We continued
on the Muir Snowfield that was desperately exposed of rock due to the lack of snow. I have been on the mountain many times and never seen the snow field as rocky as it was and even the rangers as we climbed confirmed my thoughts.We arrived at Camp Muir to a busy public shelter of many foreign climbers and made camp in the common bunk area. The public shelter is a treasure of the world with the simplicity of the
bunks, the camaraderie of the group, and the thrill of the coming adventure. We set up our stoves and made our dehydrated dinner then prepared our gear before settled into our sleeping bags for the night.We woke around 12:00 am and started the stove for coffee and oatmeal. It was clear that one of the climbers in our group was not in great shape with vomiting and dizziness. We slowly got ready for the summit bid including harness and snow protection devices. As we left the shelter around 2:00 am, the sky was clear and the stars were brilliant. We started from the high camp via the Cowlitz Glacier to the Cathedral Gap. From there, we arrived at the ridgeline and our partner could go no farther. After a "tempered" discussion, we climbed back down and as we hit the Cowliz Glacier, a charge came across me to "spin" the right way. We guided our climber to a safe zone and quickly unclipped and worked back up the Cowlitz Glacier to the Cathedral Gap. It was approx 3:30am.
Once on the crested ridgeline, we traversed to Ingram Flats, and descended under the Disappointment Clever (DC) due to extreme exposure of crevasses on the mountain. The end around was long, but around this time, we could up with the last party to leave Camp Muir well ahead of us. As we continued on, we encountered a 30 foot vertical climb know as "Hillary Step" for this climbing season and pushed toward the top of the DC nearing dawn. From there,
we continued to pass large parties on out way to the summit and arrived to the crater around 9:30 am with the winds howling from the west toward us. We dropped into the rim and made the 20 minute hike to the true summit. The wind was fierce, but it was a life moment standing on the summit of the most challenging mountains in the lower United States. It is a point in time I will never forget.
Mt Rainier 14,410 ft (Direct from Paradise to Summit) May 24/25th
We left Paradise Lodge at 8pm in rainy 
conditions and lighting in the western horizon. As we continued through the night, we were met by another intense lightning storm toward the SE with a thunder delay of 21 seconds, but closing. After a hour huddle under a exposed rock, we continued our climb in the dark of the night both cold and wet. We arrived at Camp Muir near 1am and dug our way into the public shelter for a hot meal before continuing on the climb. We packed up a little after 2am with the sky was clear and promising.
As we continue to Ingram Flats, another climbing team approached us whom had one climber needed to
return to base camp. The remaining climber, a Rainer (12x) and Denali veteran, clipped into our rope and continued onto Disappointment Cleaver (DC). With fatal exposures off the DC due to cliffs and crevasses below, fixed ropes were required most of the way to the top to 13,000 ft. At sunrise on the top of DC, the weather turned for the worst, the winds accelerated, and visibility went to zero. From that point on, our climb was in white out conditions route finding wands on the glacier, requiring individual kick steps because the our tracks were taken by the wind in the short 20 meters between us.
Nearing 9:30 am, we were only 400 feet below the crater rim (13,800 feet) with no wands in sight. After a intense 30 minute search, the weather overtook our bodies with frozen faces, fingers, and toes. Leaning in driving icy winds, white out conditions, and 13 hours of constant climbing, the decision was made to "spin".
Always tough to do, but summiting any mountain is only half the climb.
As we started down, it was a short time before the next wand we not be found. We "scanned" the area as one climber kept a visual of one wand, but again nothing could be found. As we continued to look for the next 30 minutes, we realized we might be lost high on the mountain with our winter survival skills required. It was decided before digging a snow cave for the night to plot the DC coordinates (13,000 ft) in my GPS and follow the signal. As we started down at that moment, another party higher on Rainier came through the white out blizzard also looking for the route to safety. We rescanned the area together and found the next wand. To note, our GPS coordinates were pointing us in the right direction.
Getting down the mountain to Camp Muir was extremely difficult in the wet, soft snow including a moment of hallucination on the Cowlitz Glacier of a guy riding a bike with his dog. Once back to Muir, we took a hour to rest and continued on. In my 10 year experience of climbing Mt Rainier, I've not experience worst
snow conditions to Paradise from Muir. It was deep, wet, slippery, awkward, painful, and broken. We were back at the truck at 5pm, a mere 21 hours of continued climbing.
Looking back, we climbed direct from the Paradise, dodging lightning storms, ankle turning snow conditions, sleeting horizontal winds, and zero visibility the entire way, but we made it a mere 400 feet below the summit. The success of any adventure is not always the prize, but the stories on the way. What I have written above is merely a summary of that story.
Mt Rainier (Again) June 13th, 2009
A friend asked me if I was up for climbing Rainier via the Emmons glacier route and of course I could not say no even though I had no plans to set foot on this beautiful mountain in the year of 2009. Funny thing, the friend whom suggested the climb cancelled last minute but our minds where set to spend the weekend on fresh glacier snow.
Driving to the trailhead, the rain sporadically hit the windshield hinting the day would be less than idea as we headed up to Camp Shurman. In addition to the weather,
I reflected of my 2009 New Year goal to deepen my daily life including acute mental conditioning. However for many reasons in the recent months, I have backslid by not bike riding to work in my usual frequency, my love of beer seemed to take a stronger hold than usual, and my daily work outs faded with my nightly indulgence. I could sense after a night of too many beers, dizzy headache when I woke up in the morning, lack of physical conditioning, and lack of daily water intake, my ability to perform was much less than desired. As I continued to climb the step slopes of Glacier Basin, the sun exposed through the cloud layer as I neared the 8000 feet mark. There was no question that even with my mental toughness, my body wasn't into making a climb like this without preparation on so many levels. As I continued at a steady pace, my heart gave me a lesson on what I need to do to maintain this level of exertion throughout my life project.
I reached camp, barely, as the wind plowed from the north at 40 miles per hour. In my dizzy state, I set up my bivy sack and climbed inside for a much needed rest. Dinner helped but I still went to bed with a bad headache and concern that I could not even leave the tent in the early morning. Knowing the weather outside of my thin shell was less than idea for a summit attempt, I nested in thinking we would pack up earlier and make our way back to the truck for an unsuccessful attempt.
When the alarm went off at 1am, to my surprise the conditions were remarkably calm and crisp. Even though I still felt the repercussions of my previous drinking and climbing day, I could not turn my back to such a beautiful night of climbing. We had a quick breakfast, climbed into our gear and headed up the step face toward to summit faintly held in the midnight backdrop.
I climbed in the rear of my climbing partner which is a change of our
normal climbing cadence as I tonight needed to rely on his strength and steady pace up the step face. We climbed on without any reference to our progress up the mountain in the endless sea of white except for the distant peak of Little Tacoma at 11,138 feet. In comparison to other Rainer routes, the Emmons more than makes up for its lack of technical hazards with its unrelenting constant physical demands without offering much deserved breaks of level points.
As daylight came with full force, we approached the summit plateau with the crater rim in view. I’ve never “hit the wall” on mountain but today was the day my summit was right where I stood as she “Rainier” has already taught me many life lessons during my numerous ascents. I urged my climbing partner to run to the summit while I dug in to grab a quick rest and knowing my state, I secured a snow fluke in the glacier and clipped in for protection of the vertical drop at my feet. I dreamed
as I dozed off and woke up as the first party made their way back down the mountain and the last party made their way up. Soon enough I was all alone again. As the minutes past, I became a bit concerned about the time elapsed but just at that moment my climbing partner arrived back with a satisfied smile on his face. As I stood up, my xTrex GPS inside my down jacket pocket somehow slipped put and demonstrated what it would be like to cartwheel down the steep slope of a mountain like Rainier. We watched it disappear and laughed at the humor of it...
Mt Rainier - "Climb for Clean Air" 13k and turned around due to severe storm
Mt Rainier - Climbed to 13.5k and turned around due to another climber condition
conditions and lighting in the western horizon. As we continued through the night, we were met by another intense lightning storm toward the SE with a thunder delay of 21 seconds, but closing. After a hour huddle under a exposed rock, we continued our climb in the dark of the night both cold and wet. We arrived at Camp Muir near 1am and dug our way into the public shelter for a hot meal before continuing on the climb. We packed up a little after 2am with the sky was clear and promising.As we continue to Ingram Flats, another climbing team approached us whom had one climber needed to
return to base camp. The remaining climber, a Rainer (12x) and Denali veteran, clipped into our rope and continued onto Disappointment Cleaver (DC). With fatal exposures off the DC due to cliffs and crevasses below, fixed ropes were required most of the way to the top to 13,000 ft. At sunrise on the top of DC, the weather turned for the worst, the winds accelerated, and visibility went to zero. From that point on, our climb was in white out conditions route finding wands on the glacier, requiring individual kick steps because the our tracks were taken by the wind in the short 20 meters between us.Nearing 9:30 am, we were only 400 feet below the crater rim (13,800 feet) with no wands in sight. After a intense 30 minute search, the weather overtook our bodies with frozen faces, fingers, and toes. Leaning in driving icy winds, white out conditions, and 13 hours of constant climbing, the decision was made to "spin".
Always tough to do, but summiting any mountain is only half the climb.As we started down, it was a short time before the next wand we not be found. We "scanned" the area as one climber kept a visual of one wand, but again nothing could be found. As we continued to look for the next 30 minutes, we realized we might be lost high on the mountain with our winter survival skills required. It was decided before digging a snow cave for the night to plot the DC coordinates (13,000 ft) in my GPS and follow the signal. As we started down at that moment, another party higher on Rainier came through the white out blizzard also looking for the route to safety. We rescanned the area together and found the next wand. To note, our GPS coordinates were pointing us in the right direction.
Getting down the mountain to Camp Muir was extremely difficult in the wet, soft snow including a moment of hallucination on the Cowlitz Glacier of a guy riding a bike with his dog. Once back to Muir, we took a hour to rest and continued on. In my 10 year experience of climbing Mt Rainier, I've not experience worst
snow conditions to Paradise from Muir. It was deep, wet, slippery, awkward, painful, and broken. We were back at the truck at 5pm, a mere 21 hours of continued climbing.Looking back, we climbed direct from the Paradise, dodging lightning storms, ankle turning snow conditions, sleeting horizontal winds, and zero visibility the entire way, but we made it a mere 400 feet below the summit. The success of any adventure is not always the prize, but the stories on the way. What I have written above is merely a summary of that story.
Mt Rainier (Again) June 13th, 2009
A friend asked me if I was up for climbing Rainier via the Emmons glacier route and of course I could not say no even though I had no plans to set foot on this beautiful mountain in the year of 2009. Funny thing, the friend whom suggested the climb cancelled last minute but our minds where set to spend the weekend on fresh glacier snow.
Driving to the trailhead, the rain sporadically hit the windshield hinting the day would be less than idea as we headed up to Camp Shurman. In addition to the weather,
I reflected of my 2009 New Year goal to deepen my daily life including acute mental conditioning. However for many reasons in the recent months, I have backslid by not bike riding to work in my usual frequency, my love of beer seemed to take a stronger hold than usual, and my daily work outs faded with my nightly indulgence. I could sense after a night of too many beers, dizzy headache when I woke up in the morning, lack of physical conditioning, and lack of daily water intake, my ability to perform was much less than desired. As I continued to climb the step slopes of Glacier Basin, the sun exposed through the cloud layer as I neared the 8000 feet mark. There was no question that even with my mental toughness, my body wasn't into making a climb like this without preparation on so many levels. As I continued at a steady pace, my heart gave me a lesson on what I need to do to maintain this level of exertion throughout my life project.I reached camp, barely, as the wind plowed from the north at 40 miles per hour. In my dizzy state, I set up my bivy sack and climbed inside for a much needed rest. Dinner helped but I still went to bed with a bad headache and concern that I could not even leave the tent in the early morning. Knowing the weather outside of my thin shell was less than idea for a summit attempt, I nested in thinking we would pack up earlier and make our way back to the truck for an unsuccessful attempt.
When the alarm went off at 1am, to my surprise the conditions were remarkably calm and crisp. Even though I still felt the repercussions of my previous drinking and climbing day, I could not turn my back to such a beautiful night of climbing. We had a quick breakfast, climbed into our gear and headed up the step face toward to summit faintly held in the midnight backdrop.
I climbed in the rear of my climbing partner which is a change of our
normal climbing cadence as I tonight needed to rely on his strength and steady pace up the step face. We climbed on without any reference to our progress up the mountain in the endless sea of white except for the distant peak of Little Tacoma at 11,138 feet. In comparison to other Rainer routes, the Emmons more than makes up for its lack of technical hazards with its unrelenting constant physical demands without offering much deserved breaks of level points.As daylight came with full force, we approached the summit plateau with the crater rim in view. I’ve never “hit the wall” on mountain but today was the day my summit was right where I stood as she “Rainier” has already taught me many life lessons during my numerous ascents. I urged my climbing partner to run to the summit while I dug in to grab a quick rest and knowing my state, I secured a snow fluke in the glacier and clipped in for protection of the vertical drop at my feet. I dreamed
as I dozed off and woke up as the first party made their way back down the mountain and the last party made their way up. Soon enough I was all alone again. As the minutes past, I became a bit concerned about the time elapsed but just at that moment my climbing partner arrived back with a satisfied smile on his face. As I stood up, my xTrex GPS inside my down jacket pocket somehow slipped put and demonstrated what it would be like to cartwheel down the steep slope of a mountain like Rainier. We watched it disappear and laughed at the humor of it...It was a long, sloppy, and exhausting descent back to camp but like any summit bid, the mental toughness sets in when the mind and feet are in the most venerable state. Once back at camp, the sun was beating down on our backs but we quickly broke camp and continued to the trailhead through Glacier Basin. I glissaded a record of 2 minutes down the slopes and as I looked back up from the base of the basin and the immense sloping terrain, an eerie feeling came over me of what it would be like standing in the bottom of ocean without water. As I turned my back to the mountain and continued on, I knew the final 4 miles would seem like eight and they did...
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2005---------------------
Mt Rainier - "Climb for Clean Air" 13k and turned around due to severe storm
Mt Rainier - Climbed to 13.5k and turned around due to another climber condition
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