Mount Rainier

 

Crevases Mid-Route

 

We had a lovely surprise visit from Sam parents while we were camped in Rainier National Park. They were only 40 miles or so from where we were picking up a kayak so they came and spent the evening and next morning with us. It was fantastic to see some familiar faces and enjoy the company of them. Brews were drank, gin and tonics made, followed by delicious kabobs and cajun style rice. I had warned them to sleep with one eye open because I had formulated a plan to bury them and take their jewels (because that's what gypsies do right??). Seemed like a logical thing to think. haha. Fortunately for them I let them live another day, maybe I knew that breakfast would ensue if they were around in the morning. After eating one of the breakfast sandwiches i've ever had, we packed our packs to head up towards Rainier. It was finally our time to make our way up the mountain!

We got a relatively late start and probably ended up choosing the most inopportune time to head up the glaciated mountain. In reality we either needed to start at 5am or 5pm to avoid the heat of the day. When crossing glaciers it's not only the sun beating down on you but the rays are being reflected back off the snow onto you. More or less, we were entering an easy bake oven during the hottest time of the day, we got anxious and couldn't wait till 5 so we headed up somewhere around 2 in the afternoon. Our destination for the day was Camp Muir, It's situated at about 10,500 feet nestled in the heart of the mountain 4,000ft below the summit. We only had to go 4 miles but all of which were straight up a glacier gaining a little more than 1,000ft per mile. It was brutal and relentless and the sun didn't help but for the first 3 miles we managed to keep a pretty quick consistent pace.

 

 

 

At some point in the last 3/4 mile I took a downward turn. I'm assuming that we gained way too much elevation far too quickly and minor altitude sickness was setting in. The last push of the climb to base camp took me almost as long as the previous 3 miles had combined. My head was spinning, I had the shakes (and not because i was cold), my appetite was gone and with every step i wanted to vomit but mostly I just wanted to lay my head down and never wake up. Slowly trudging along, I FINALLY made it to camp and was welcomed by what I would classify as the COOLEST ranger ever. I found sam building a snow wind wall and trying to get the tent up before darkness set in. All I wanted to do was sleep, evening standing up almost enduced me throwing up. Sam graciously let me slip into the next and zonk out for almost an hour. Meanwhile, we was finishing the set up of camp and melting water. It was getting late so Sam woke me up so we could get some dinner into us before we crawled into bed. Fortunately, my nap zapped nearly all the life back into me and was feeling like a million bucks!

Super tired and ready for dinner!

It was around 9PM when we finally got around to dinner and the entire rest of base camp was already sound asleep! Most of the people up there (85% or more) were with guides who would take them up the peak. The guides get their clients up around 10:30 or 11 PM so they can be en-route by 11:30 or midnight at the latest. This ensures that they will have plenty of time to summit and descend in the safest conditions possible. This clearly was not our plan as it was nearing 10 o'clock and we were just crawling into bed. We had checked over the weather and we had nothing but perfect conditions for our summit push so we opted for a 3am wake up to ensure we'd be moving by 4. Turns out, neither of us slept nearly a wink. The wind was so ferocious that even in our super extra small wind buffetting tent, it managed to make enormous amounts of racket and shook us around all night. We certainly were not rested but definately ready to get moving when the alarms went off. Made some coffee, ate delicious peanutbutter/nutella roll-ups (a staple for us now!) and got roped up to begin the climb towards the summit.

 

 

I know that words cannot even come close to describing how magnificent it was that morning. We were atleast 1,000 above the clouds and it appeared as though the sun was rising below our feet. The colors of the sunrise bleeding through the clouds, mixed with rocky peaks poking through the cloud blanket was unbelievable. We attempted to take some pictures but the lighting for the cameras wast quite right and it's something that you really have to see for yourself to appreciate.

climbing above the clouds

 

 

At about 6:30 we ran into the first guided party on their descent, holy moly! It was odd to see them coming off the summit at such an early time but then realized that they had been going for almost 8 hours at this point in the morning. We thus far, were very happy that we didn't start at 11pm :) I was googly eyed the entire time because this was the first I had ever seen serious crevases, let alone having to cross them. It's other wordly and so intruiging at the same time. We passed a slow party of 4 on our way up along with hoards of other people coming down from the summit, like little ants all over the mountain!

The mountain seemed to never end, each time we looked up we saw what was in our minds the summit only to get there and realize that we had to go up a to the next high point which was the summit. Once there we had the same realization that we still had farther to go, hours passed and we were still going up hill when we finally crested into the crater of the still active volcanic mountain. All that was left was a quick jaunt across the crater and a short hike up to the top. While climbing up hill previously, we were only wearing long sleeve shirts but pushing over the crest we ran into winds so strong that you could push yourself as hard as possible into it and it could support your body weight. We were now bundled up in down coats, gloves, and hats. We snapped a few quick pictures at the top and knew we had a long way down (we were going all the way to the car and not staying at camp muir) so almost as soon as we summited we were heading back down. The views were spectacular and we could see 3 or 4 of the other major volcanic mountains in Oregon and Washington.

The descent was a sloppy, hot, wet mess that we trudged 5,000ft back down to our tent at Camp Muir. The tables had turned and this time when reaching camp Sam had a case of the sick-ies so he took his turn curled up in the tent napping while I made water and organized camp. Once we were both feeling rejuvanated we packed up camp and began to head back down to the car. We had 4 miles with some serious vertical relief to tackle before we could throw our feet up in the Turtle and make a warm dinner. It all went rather quickly and in no time we were sound asleep in the warmth of the van.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy