Mt Rainier - Washington High Point

Many of you know that my brother and I have a goal of reaching the highpoint of all 50 states (Tiff and I are still debating about Denali, but that's another story).  Mt Rainier is the highpoint of Washington and stands at 14,410' -- if you've never seen it, it's a very impressive mountain (volcano actually) that can be seen from a large portion of Washington when the weather cooperates.  I'd had my eye on Mt Rainier for a while as I was anxious to do a guided climb to the top and learn skills that would be useful for climbs to highpoints in other states, but needless to say I was more than a little nervous when I peered out the left side of the aircraft as we flew into Seattle and saw Mt. Rainier in all its glory.  The Rockies and Sierras are beautiful and just as tall, but they rise from valleys and plains that are at 4-5,000' -- Rainier essentially rises from sea level and dominates it's surroundings.  After a long look out the window, I was beginning to wonder if I bit off more than I could chew!

I've done a lot of hiking over the years and I was always a little nervous about Mt Rainier.  It's a challenging mountain where people on expeditions to larger mountains in the Himalayas, Andes, etc. go to train and test out their gear.  I'd dealt with cold, wind and altitude on the other 14er's I'd hiked, but Mt. Rainier was a new challenge as I'd yet to deal with glaciers, icefalls and crevasses.  I knew that I couldn't go unprepared, so I sought out the best guiding service I could find and ended up signing up for a July 16-19 trip with Rainier Mountaineering Inc...RMI.  They're a world renowned guiding service that holds yearly expeditions to basically every major mountain around the globe.  For a fee they were going to give me 1.5 days of training and then show me the safest way to the top of Washington. 

Gear check done and packed back up.  I never weighed my pack, but I'm guessing that it weighed 35-40 lbs.

This was our training day on the snow slopes just outside Paradise.

Most of the folks from my climb -- note the sunglasses around my neck.  These are 'glacier glasses' and have a much darker tint than normal sunglasses.  The reflection of the sun off of the snow is very intense and can cause snow blindness -- snow blindness is very painful and has been compared to throwing sand in your eyes.

Note the shorts and gaiters look.  I'm going to popularize this look in Houston -- give it 6-months and everyone will be sporting it!

Mt Adams in the background.  Its over 12,000' tall and is the second tallest in Washington.

This is the first day's climb from Paradise to Camp Muir.  It's about 4 miles and 5,000' of vertical.  The weather was so great that I wore this shirt, shorts and tons of sunscreen!

Sometime early AM on the push to the summit.  We tended to stop every hour or so for a 10-15 min break.  Enough time to hydrate and get some food down.  The coat I'm wearing in the picture is really warm.  It's like putting on a sleeping bag.  I never wore it while hiking as I didn't want to start sweating, but I kept it at the top of my pack so that I could throw it on to stay warm during breaks.

A short break to watch the sun come up at ~13,000'.  The first two guys in the picture are Mike and Pete from Chicago and were the other two folks on my rope (the other were me and our guide Gabi).  The rope isn't attached to the mountain, but is attached to each one of us.  We all go up or down together.  The idea is that if one person were to fall, he/she could be saved by the other 3 folks on the rope throwing themselves onto the ground and driving their ice axes and crampons into the glacier! 

The top at last with Mike and Pete!  We summitted at 6am and it took a combined 10 hours of climbing and ~9,000 calories according to my heartrate monitor!  I climb for a lot of reasons, but it's mostly because I never feel more at home than when I'm in the mountains.  I guess it comes from growing up in Nevada where you can see mountains everywhere you look and the only flat parts are the valleys wedged between each successive mountain range.  I feel so small on a mountain and every time I look towards the summit at the start of a climb I'm doubtful that I'll actually make it to the top.  But I just start taking steps and no matter how tired I get I continue to focus on taking that next step.  Trust me, the steps got pretty small at times and successively slower...but I just kept stepping!  Round trip it took us 15-hours to hike Rainier.  The day before our hike began, a guide set a new record for going up/down Rainier from Paradise...he did it in an incredible 4 hours and 20 minutes!

This is Gabi, my trusted guide!  He's from Argentina and is a total savage as he climbs year round (Rainier, Denali, etc in our summer and Aconcagua and other Andes peaks during our winter).  On the way down, every guide we ran into on the mountain knew him and was always happy to see him.  Definitely a respected guy with a ton of experience.  I was glad to be on his rope!

That's steam you see drifting off the top of Rainier.  Rainier is a volcano and will blow again someday.  I put my hands on the rocks near the steam and they were HOT..not warm...HOT!  I ran my hand across the steam and was nearly scolded!  Apparently the steam forms 'steam caves' under the ice sheet in the center of the summit crater.  I didn't venture into the caves...maybe next time :)

Nearly done.  Round trip it took us 15-hours to hike Rainier. The day before our hike began, a guide set a new record for going up/down Rainier from Paradise...he did it in an incredible 4 hours and 20 minutes!  This was taken on the way down a couple miles from Paradise which is the highest point you can reach in a car.  I'd been up for 36 straight hours here.  I know the hat isn't very appealing, but the weather was incredibly good during the climb and the sun was very bright.  People were getting sunburned on the underside of their arms, noses and thighs due to the sun reflecting off the snow.