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Climbing Mt. Rainier

Friday, August 08, 2008

When I first sat down to start writing this I had been up for 40 hours. While that in and of itself is a pretty unusual occurrence, the real feat here is that after 5 years of staring at beautiful Mt. Rainier, yesterday, 8/7/08, I stepped onto the summit. It was by far the hardest physical thing I've even done. It was also one of the most energizing and empowering experiences and one that is still sinking in.

In 2006 I set a few goals for myself, and one of them was to get in the best shape of my life. I decided that the best way to prove that was to climb Mt. Rainier. The trip was planned for one to two days depending on the weather and I went with three other folks. One of whom, Phil Arnold, was a former guide on the mountain and this was his 108th summit, so we were in good hands. We left on Wednesday morning with our 50+ lbs packs to make the climb from Paradise Inn at ~5400ft to Muir basecamp, which is at 10,200 ft. The weather forecast had called for it to be sunny during the day with thunderstorms at night. This was really disappointing as thunderstorms on the mountain are extremely dangerous and dramatically reduce your chances for summiting.

As we started our hike up, the weather started to turn and the clouds and rain started to move in. Rainier is an absolutely spectacular mountain and it is amazing to see how quickly the weather can change up there. One minute we're hiking in 70 degree weather and then all of a sudden the wind comes up, the clouds roll in and it starts to rain. It was a drizzle at first and then started dumping. Good times! I'd say that it rained fairly hard for about 1.5 hrs of the 4.5 hr climb, but by the time we got to Muir the rain had, for the most part, stopped.

At Muir the plan was to get situated in the public shelter, make dinner, get packed up for the summit and then try to get a few hours of sleep before getting back up at 11:30pm. Phil was going to get up first, check the weather outside and make the call whether we would go for it, or whether we'd wait and try to do it a day later. We all tried to sleep, but the public shelter was more like a bus station with people coming and going and a few late arrivals kept everyone up. We probably wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, so when 11:30 came and the alarm went off we were all ready to get going. Phil stepped outside and reported back that the weather had cleared. It was windy, but the sky was crystal clear - nothing but billions of stars.

We made a quick breakfast (oatmeal, blueberries, and I drank as much phix as I possibly could), filled my three water bottles with phix and threw in some nuun to help give me a little extra electrolyte replacement. Then we suited up - helmut, headlamp, gortex pants, harness, plastic boots, crampons, ice axe, food, jackets, hats, gloves, mittens, balaclava, grabbed our packs and roped up.



A typical climb is 6 to 8 hours. It's pitch black out, so all you can see is the immediate ground around you. The climb started out smoothly and the route was in good shape. First we went across Cathedral Gap, then across Ingraham Glacier, which was the site of the worse climbing disaster in US history (killed 11 people), up Disappointment Cleaver and then it was a fairly straight shot from ~12,000 ft to 14,411 to get to the summit. Around 4am there was the first glimmer of the sunrise, followed about 30 minutes later by the actual sunrise.



As we got further into our trip, weather started to form and Phil became increasingly concerned that we may have to turn back. Rainier generates its own weather and frequently nasty lenticular clouds will form. These clouds can generate extreme winds and usually make it difficult to impossible to get to the summit. So as we started to see clouds forming around the summit, Phil decided that we were going to have to make an aggressive push to get up there quickly. I was exhausted already and wasn't sure I had the energy for this last push. I kept trying to remember what Sam had told me, "One foot in front of the other gets you to the top." As we got closer, Phil talked about just lashing the packs to the mountain and having us scramble to the top. I knew we were getting close and the urgency of the situation gave us all an extra boost. At one point I looked up and saw the ring of rocks that surround the crater and knew we were getting really close. The heat from the geothermal activity inside Rainier (dormant volcano) keeps the snow from forming and there is actually a small lake below the crater. So with time running out, I put my head down and concentrated on rest stepping and pressure breathing and before I knew it I was walking down into the crater to celebrate a successful summit. We had made it to the top in just 5.5hrs! I have to say that after 5 years of looking at the mountain it was surreal and I still have a hard time internalizing it. Here is a picture of Phil and me in the crater followed by a gratuitous phix summit shot.





We supposedly spent 45 minutes on top, but it seemed like 5 or 10 minutes max to me as I was a bit out of it. Plus the altitude at 14.4k makes you feel nauseous, makes it hard to breath and really effects your energy level. It turned out that making such a big push to get up there was the right call as we were one of the last groups of the day to make it to the summit given the weather.

Most of the injuries, and worse, in mountain climbing happen on the way down, so as we began our journey back down, I really tried to concentrate on making sure that every step was well placed. Easier said than done when you're so beat. After a few thousand feet we exited the clouds, although it was still windy, and continued the trek downward. At this point, my body and mind were going from periods of utter exhaustion to quasi-euphoria. After several more hours of climbing we made it back to Muir where we spent an hour packing up our sleeping bags and stove and other supplies before leaving to make the final 2.5hr trek back to Paradise. At 2:45pm we stepped into the Paradise parking lot and our journey was officially complete.

I've never been an intense athlete and so for me, climbing Rainier pushed me to rethink what I'm capable of. I think like in so many aspects of our lives frequently we are the ones who create these artificial limits and boundaries around what we are and are not capable of. One foot in front of the other, whether it's starting a company, taking on a project, exercising, or really moving towards any goal, gets you closer and closer to, and then eventually over, the finish line.

If you're interested, you can check out my photos here

As many of you know from the previous blogs on our site, one of phix's own, Sam Thompson, just tried to break the Colorado Trail speed record (483 miles, 75,000 ft of vertical gain, 8 mountain ranges in 8 days). If you get a chance, please read his last post, which is truly inspirational. http://www.seesamrun.com/blog

By: phix Permalink