Mt. Rainier

Today is memorial day, and it’s a little soggy outside. Seems like a great time to listen to some tunes and document a trip.

A few years ago, I was able to accompany my brother Kevin, Chris Mason, and the legendary Bob Bills to check out the Cascade Mountain Range in Washington and climb Mt. Rainier. We went to climb the Disappointment Clever Route. Chris and Bob had done the route once previously, however, it was a first for both me and Kevin.

Located about fifty miles Southeast of Seattle, Mt. Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. At 14,411 feet it’s the highest peak in the Cascade range and is an active volcano (think Mt. St. Helens). This was apparent by the large crater capping it’s summit, and the steam visibly rising there from.

Most of us left the Salt Lake airport to fly to Seattle at the same time- the exception being myself. Apparently in the post- 9/11 world of general aviation, you’re not allow to take sharpened, pointy, steel objects in the cabin of a plane. While packing for the trip, I completely overlooked the fact that I (for reasons unknown) had separated my crampons from the rest of my gear and placed them neatly in my carry-on bag.

The TSA officer at the scanner, however, did not overlook this fact and I soon found myself watching her rifle through my bag searching for the questionable contents inside. It only took her a few seconds to fish out and present before us the foreign and decidedly out of place appearance of a crampon.

Needless to say, my immediate journey concluded at the scanner. Kevin, Chris and Bob caught their flight while I went back down to the ticket counter to sort things out and get on a later one. I did, and later that night reunited with the others.

Mt. Rainier is pretty impressive from Seattle. From sea level you’re in position to view the full 14,000-plus foot rise from the coastal shore. This mass is amplified by the white of the glaciated peak providing a striking contrast to the green, rain-fed landscape of the Seattle area.

Worthy of note was an instance which took place the following morning. We had just Tetris-ed our gear into the back of the SUV (a pile unstable as a schizophrenic postal worker), and were ready to roll out to the trailhead. I saw a pack tumbling out of the back and reached forward to cram it back into place. At that instance Chris was diligently fulfilling his duties as the designated hatch closer. He slammed it shut with laudable form, but instead of hearing the nice, compact ’thunk’ that normally accompanies the closing of a rear door- there was an odd silence. He quickly repeated his efforts, and the door closed.

Unbeknownst to Chris (to this day), the silence of the failed first attempt could be easily explained by the pulsating throb in my upper right arm. I was fairly concerned at the time that the mother of all dead-arms may hamper my climbing efforts, but this worry proved to be unnecessary. The throb quickly subsided and was a non-issue for the duration of the trip.
That day, we hiked and skinned up to Camp Muir. We received word in passing a party on their way back down that there had been a pretty nasty storm with very high winds the previous night. According to them, few if anybody had reached the top that morning. The winds however, were rapidly decreasing and we were blessed with unbelievably nice weather throughout our trip. It was so nice in fact, that I burnt through all of my water that afternoon on the way up. A good portion of the evening/night was spent melting down snow for the following morning.

We spent the evening resting in camp and got a few hours of sleep in preparation for our attempt for the top. We left in two groups. Me, Kevin, and Chris left camp first. Bills left soon thereafter with a few of his friends in a second group. If I remember correctly, it was approximately 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. when we left camp. The guided parties that had been our neighbors in camp during the night were already gone.

Camp Muir is nestled below a large bowl on the Southwest side of the mountain. In traversing up and out of this bowl, there are several bare sections in the snowfield that require some scrambling through loose rock and dirt. Considering we were roped up, in the dark, with headlamps, helmets and ice axes, it struck us as pretty funny when Chris threw out the notion that he felt like a miner.

One of the coolest moments of the Climb was topping out on the ridge looming over the bowl. As we crested over the top, the Eastern side of the mountain fell away from us, and the very first hints of light peered out and glowed from behind the silhouettes of adjacent peaks on the horizon. It was very pretty.

At this point, we had to take a little care to skirt around ice fissures and crevasses as they became increasingly more prevalent.

Chris lead out at a pretty speedy pace- particularly from the Cleaver to the summit. When we got to the crater, we (or at least I) were pretty sauced. The scenery was spectacular. I rolled over and took a brief semi-conscious coma/nap and enjoyed the view.

We walked across the summit crater to the top and took some photos. It was an extraordinarily clear day. From the summit, we could easily see Mt. Baker, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. Beyond to the south, we could see the tip of Mt. Jefferson.

We passed Bills on our way down and saw a friend of his named Gordy. None of us knew Gordy, but we had heard it thrown out the night before that Gordy was going to try to meet up with Bob on the way to the top. As it turns out, according to Bills, Gordy had just climbed Mt. Baker the day before. Upon completing this objective, he drove immediately to Rainier and when we passed him on our way down, he was nearing the summit. He was un-roped, climbing solo, with ski poles, wearing what appeared to be cross-training shoes. He was also like sixty years old. The guy was a machine.The descent to camp was fun, and we were pretty worked when we got back. After a breather, we packed up and skiid down.