New heights

If I live to be 100, I may never see a better day to climb, especially on the fickle Mt. Rainier. I had been looking forward to this weekend for a while - everyone I normally "do stuff with" was out of town, and so I had noted this date on my calendar as a possibility for getting over and doing a "real" mountain. I had had no luck finding a climbing partner, and so, with a little bit of trepidation, I made the 6.5-hour drive toward Rainier on my own, with ever increasing clouds as I got closer.

If I live to be 100, I may never see a better day to climb, especially on the fickle Mt. Rainier.

I had been looking forward to this weekend for a while - everyone I normally "do stuff with" was out of town, and so I had noted this date on my calendar as a possibility for getting over and doing a "real" mountain. I had had no luck finding a climbing partner, and so, with a little bit of trepidation, I made the 6.5-hour drive toward Rainier on my own, with ever increasing clouds as I got closer.

Once at the Paradise visitor's center/trailhead, I was amazed at how deserted it was. Normally, on weekends and in the summer, this place is packed, but the climbing/hiking season didn't actually open until the next day.

The only folks in the lot were a group of backcountry skiers just finishing up their day, so I resigned myself to a solo climb, just as another car pulled in and parked two spaces over from me. The driver was a young man, Mark, originally from Columbia, who was also planning on heading up alone, so we joined forces, as the weather was looking sketchy at best.

I had stopped and asked at the ranger station, but Rainier is so big it creates its own weather, and as evening was falling, the clouds and snow were descending down from the summit, making the top invisible.

Starting out

We left Paradise and its 20 feet of snow at 4:40, headed toward Camp Muir, 4,788 feet up the hill. The temp at Paradise was a balmy 34 degrees, but as the sun started setting, the temps dropped a bit. It was 4 degrees at Muir at 10,180 feet when we arrived.

The walk up was excellent, though difficult, and within a few hundred meters, we wished we had taken our snowshoes, as the snow at the bottom was both plentiful and soft, causing for more than 1 thigh deep posthole. To top off the start, the main buckle on my pack broke, and I was carrying 67 pounds, partly as I had team gear plus my own gear, and am training for a possible Denali bid next May.

We made the almost 5,000 feet in a little under five hours, despite weather and bad pack, so not bad time, really. Sunset on the way up was a bit ethereal, and a different look than other times I had seen it in the Cascades because of the clouds.

Now, Mark is only 29, compared to my 48, and a very lean 145 pounds (compared to my 185) 2:46 marathoner to boot. He also was going "light," carrying more than 20 pounds less than I was, so the challenge bar had been set for me, and with the busted pack, the deep snow and his speed, it was all I had to sort of keep up.

Camp site

With the temps being so low, we set up camp pretty quickly, cooked a quick meal and hit the sack around 11 p.m., with the temps right around zero. It sounds cold, but with only two chemical warmers in my mittens, I was actually warm through the night, having tossed my space blanket over my regular bag, which was a bit crowded, with three water bottles, fuel canister, food bag, etc. in there with me.

By 5 a.m. the temp was a brisk minus 4, but as we got up a couple of things offset it: the sun was already up, the sky was completely clear as only a mountain sky can be, and most importantly, there wasn't a single breath of wind, which for those of you who know the Cascades, is NOT an everyday thing. We were off to a promising start, though the weather can change in minutes, leaving you in a whiteout, so we still took precautions in our summit gear.

Opting for fast and light, we went up with only the essentials, cutting our pack weight down to 30-35 pounds or so for summit day, so the trek was pretty manageable, even with a lot of snow and elevation.

Reaching the top

The standard "easy" routes from Muir are the Ingraham Direct or Disappointment Cleaver routes, which don't require any real climbing ability, though you will likely be roped up over the glacier, as crevasses are common, even early in the season.

As a note, there are no real "easy" routes, as there are still 4,000 feet to climb - it's more the level of technicality you want to embrace. This was NOT the easiest of routes/options, but we went with what we had, and with what the mountain gave us that day. Summiting is optional, getting back down is mandatory, life insurance not withstanding.

We decided on trying the Gibralter Ledges route out of Muir, a fairly demanding test early in the season, and reasonably technical on its own.

We opted for a standard ice ax, one trekking pole and one ice tool each, as well as crampons from the start, two pickets and a fair amount (we thought) of webbing, Purlon nylon cord and carabiners, though "enough" isn't always enough, as it turned out.

From Camp Muir, instead of heading toward the Ingraham Flats, we turned west and basically climbed up the Cowlitz Cleaver to the nose of Gibraltar Rock.

We took turns leading the various sections, with him leading the more technical rocky ascents, and me doing a lot of the kicking steps on the awesome snowfields.

Once on solid-though-really-slanted-ground, we traversed across the top of the glacier past Cadaver Gap, where we were able to join the standard route of the Ingraham Direct/Disappointment Cleaver route for the easy hike to the summit at Columbia Crest - 14,410 feet.

To be honest, after the journey, Summiting was almost an after-thought. We were already thinking about trying something cool on the way back down.

So, on the way back down, with still a few extra hours of crystal clear, windless daylight left, and still feeling our oats, so to speak, instead of taking the recommended, standard route down the ID/DC route, we retraced our steps back to the top of Gibraltar, and then did five 60 meter running rappels off Gibraltar and down the 65 degree glacier/snowfield between Gibraltar and Cadaver Gap before walking it back out to Camp Muir - almost 1,000 feet of rappelling/controled descent was a great way to finish up!

After that, it was simply a matter of packing up camp and making the 4.5-mile descent back to Paradise.

A perfect day

If you don't think Mountain School is worth it, we used literally every piece of equipment we had brought up, and ended up having to leave a few pieces of purlon and a picket on the hill as deadman anchors, but it was well worth it.

More importantly, I used a TON of skills I learned through the Spokane Mountaineers, and, in all likelihood, couldn't have completed this trip on the route we had chosen without them.

We even ended up using a modified ice ax/boot belay at one point.

The sun was blazing all day, the temps were a perfect 28 degrees, so we were able to climb in short sleeves and light gloves. The biggest blessing was that for the entire day, there was NO wind, until we got almost all the way back down to Paradise, where the wind off the glacier helped push us the last couple of miles. I don't know of any way it could have been a better day to spend 11 hours on one of the world's prettiest mountains.

In all, I would have to say that this was perhaps the best outdoor day I have ever had. The weather was PERFECT, the conditions of the snow were excellent, my new partner and I made a great team, and there were as many adrenaline-filled challenges and satisfying rushes of accomplishment as I could want.

When we finally hit the parking lot and took our packs off for the last time, the feeling was almost ecstatic - exhausted but not spent, but mostly filled with the knowledge that we had done something that most wouldn't/couldn't.

We had truly earned our merit badges for Rainier today. We agreed that it was a climb we would never forget, and left the mountain as more than friends.

Dave Adlard is an Athol resident and organizer of Adventure Sports Week at Farragut State Park June 11-13.