In 2011, I was given the opportunity to intern at Amazon - a opportunity that ended up shaping the next 12 years of my life. For now though, it was just a fun opporutnity to try something new and spend a summer in Seattle - a placed I have enjoyed since first visiting Derek back in undergrad. This story is about a slightly different topic though, my successful attempt to summit Mt Rainier for the first time - and experience that also shaped the next years of my life.
2011-07-29
Our trip started after I finished up work on Friday, which ended up being much later than anyone liked. I got out around 4p and connected up with my cousin Sean to drive up to the mountain. The last few hours of work and the whole drive up, we knew this was going to be rough. We likely wouldn’t get to the mountain until after 6p and then we started our hike to camp Muir - which would take 3-4 hours on the best of days. It was going to be a late night before a very early morning.
The mountain was large and looming when we started our hike - It’s one of the most prominent peaks in the world (measured by the distance from the summit to the lowest point of the surrounding terrain - basically, how much it sticks up over everything around it). That also makes it beautiful to look at - and makes it all that much awe inspiring when we thought about climbing up to the summit of this thing…
The hike was beautiful, nice and cool because of the clouds and then a beautiful sunset after we rose above the cloud layer. The combination of the scenery and being “on the way” kept us in good spirits, despite the irresponsible start. Looking back on these photos, you can really tell how new we were to this - I wore my ski googles because I didn’t have glacier glasses, but I now know that good fitting polarized sunglasses work just fine. I didn’t own a sunshirt at that point - which are perfect for approach days like this. Nostalgic though, we were such amateurs…
We finally made it to camp just before 11p. We had a 1:30 am start for the summit the next day, so sleep was of the essence. Thankfully, the crew (4 of Sean’s colorado friends who I had never met) had taken our tent up earlier in the day when they did their approach and set it up for us - so all we had to do was unroll our sleeping bags and crawl in. Here’s a picture of the crew (minus Sean on the far left)
Speaking of the first crew (Brian, Ryan (golden), Nate, and another Ryan), did the approach hike up to camp Muir in the morning and had spent the day setting up camp and resting before the summit day the following day. They shared the picures from their apporach hike - which was far warmer, but far less irresponsible than ours.
The next morning came around way too early - and my picture back down to the clouds below was not as spectacular as it was in real life. We spent about 30 min getting our gear together and roping up before we took off. The crew this time around was Nate, Sean, and I. Brian, Golden, and Ryan were on a separate rope team - which ended up being a bit faster than us and we didn’t really see them until just below the summit (when they were on their way down).
For the next 3 hours or so, we made some steady progress across the Cowlitz glacier and up the Ingraham glacier. Before we made it to the cleaver, the sun started to rise - which was beautiful. Something about the trasition from night to day while making a summit attempt gives me a burst of energy - and this was the first time I really experienced it.
We had a bit of a slog over dissapointment cleaver and the combination of the exertion and the warming weather got us all pretty warm/sweaty. At the top of the cleaver, you round this ridge that takes you up to the high break and when we rounded the ridge the wind hit us and it got really cold really fast. We went from overheaded/sweating to frigid in about 30 seconds. We had to take a short halt to layer back up - my first experience with the fast changing weather on a climb like this. The rest of the summit approach was uneventful - although the eleveation and only a few hours of sleep last night really started to take it’s toll as we approached the summit…
The Dissapointment Cleaver (DC) route drops you off on the side of the summit crater opposite the acual summit - so the “false summit” feels like you are there, but then you have another half mile or so to go to get to the actual summit. It’s a great place to take a break though - unrope and contemplate your life decisions.
The summit crater is about a mile across (maybe a mile and a half) and it is full of snow. I read that there are sulfur vents (like other PNW volcanoes) but all of the sulfur is trapped below ~100 feet of snow. Here’s a picture of the crater, with Sean for scale.
The final stretch crosses the crater - which is fairly stable snow and is pretty flat/leisurly - before you arrive at the actual summit. Actually summitting is very exciting, but it’s not as beautiful as I had expected it to be - this is fairly true of all moutains (and probably life too), the beauty is in the journey.
We made it! At the summit…
The descent was easier physically, but decents are harder technically. It’s a lot easier when you are going down (and tired) to slip and slide into a crevass. We did our best to maintain discipline and we did ok - certainly not bad for my first time doing this.
The descent is where I got to see Camp Muir for the first time in the daylight. Camp Muir is a fairly large camp, with both a bunkhouse (used by clients with the guide groups) and enough space for at least 30 tents. There is one stone ranger hut along with an alpine outhouse (which collects the solids and drains the liquids into a crevass). There’s a lot of history in this camp - worth looking up sometime.
This little plot of 3 tents is where we “slept” last night..
We rested for an hour or so and then packed up our stuff. Packing up was a very slow process - our summit packs were very light and the thought of putting a full pack back on was less exciting.
Finally, the will to get down prevailed and we continued the descent down the Muir snowfield and back to the parking lot. There’s a very pretty spot right below the snowfield where we stopped to take our mountain view pics - it was even more beauiful when we had the sense of accompishment behind us.
We enlisted a fellow climber who had just finished their descent to take our picures back at the car. This was a very tired, but very proud crew!
