The One Where I Climb Mount Rainier, Part II

This is the second post in this series.  For Part I, click here.

Friday, August 16, 2013

By 4:15 everyone had arrived at our house and by 4:45 the gear was packed up and we hit the road. I was a bit bleary-eyed and worried about staying awake for the 2 hour drive up to Paradise but the adrenaline more than compensated for my fatigue. We buzzed along through South Hill, Eatonville, and the smaller towns as the pavement gave way to forests and our excitement grew with every mile that passed. Shortly before 7:00 we rolled into the parking lot and began making final preparations for our hike up to Camp Muir (base camp).

Longhurst Living Room ~4:30am

We checked in with the climbing ranger, got our permits, and finally hit the trail at about 8:00. Each of us had a backpack with 45-55 lbs. of gear and loads and loads of optimism.





                                                                                                     Paradise Steps ~8:00am

The trail from Paradise starts at about 5,500 feet in elevation and in mid-August it follows meadows full of wildflowers and marmots. It heads straight toward the mountain, each step rising through the final stands of scraggly trees until they are left behind completely. It doesn't take long for the views to the south to grow wide and long. Mount Adams and Mount Saint Helens both appear very soon and sometimes look close enough to touch.

Wildflowers above Paradise

Me hiking through a wildflower meadow (Skyline Trail)

Marmot and Squirrel

Mt. St. Helens rising beyond the Tatoosh Range
 

As we left the trees behind, we began to have an amazing view of the heavily-crevassed Nisqually Glacier directly to the north of us. Appearing very dirty this late in the season, the Nisqually Glacier is one of the larger glaciers on the mountain and the trail system north of Paradise offers fantastic views of this impressive monster.
 

We took our first break at Pebble Creek, a bit more than two miles out from Paradise. The creek is at about 7,200 feet, meaning that we had already covered a respectable 1,700 feet in elevation in less than two hours. Pebble Creek is where a lot of the meltoff from the Muir Snowfield runs out and we took the opportunity to filter water to be used later on the climb. Dallyn had been using trail shoes to that point and he took the opportunity to stash them off-trail and trade them for his mountaineering boots. Rested and watered, we got ready to make our way up onto the Muir Snowfield. The next 1.9 miles to Camp Muir would ascend nearly 3,000 feet in elevation.

Me with Nisqually Glacier behind

Trail Signage at Pebble Creek

Looking toward the snowfiled from Pebble Creek

 

After leaving from Pebble Creek we were on snow for the next few hours. The Muir Snowfield is a permanent patch of snow running south from Camp Muir for nearly 2 miles. The pitch gets steeper through this section and the going gets a little slower. We only took one 15 minute break during this section of the climb but it still took us nearly 3 hours to get to Camp Muir from Pebble Creek.

Boot Track on Muir Snowfield

Our climbing party @ Muir Snowfield

Our climbing party.  Posing.

 

When we finally arrived at Camp Muir (sometime between 2 and 3:00), we were pretty tired out. The original plan had been to push beyond Muir (elevation 10,100) and camp out at Ingraham Flats (elevation 11,000) - a relatively flat stretch of ground on the Ingraham Glacier that typically serves as one of the highest camping spots on the mountain. However, after assessing our progress we decided to make camp at Muir. This would mean that summit day would be longer for us but we would have the advantage of being able to leave all of our overnight gear at a lower point on the mountain. Saving ourselves the effort of packing all of that gear up to Ingraham Flats sounded pretty good at that point.

Showing my moves; Cowlitz Glacier in background

A 5-minute nap against the Muir bunkhouse

Getting ready for naps

So we set about making camp and tried to get a bit of rest by taking naps between 6:00 and 8:00. Sleep proved pretty elusive for most of us so at round 8:00 we got up to prepare dinner and melt snow to use for water on the climb. Dinner for most of us was some variety of Mountain House freeze dried nastiness, although Brent was able to enjoy the fruits of the previous night's labor (one of the other reasons he had stayed up late Thursday night was to prepare his quinoa. It looked really good with avocado and sun-dried tomatoes after my noodle and chicken Mountain House.).
 

 Dinner Preparations

We settled down to sleep around 10:30 with a plan to get up and begin our ascent at 2:30. We had set up camp on the snow on the Cowlitz Glacier immediately adjacent to Camp Muir and so we were all grateful for our air mattresses that insulated us from the ice we were sleeping on. At least I was grateful until I woke up at about 12:30 on a deflated mattress, shivering with cold directly on the snow beneath me. As we were lying down, Lara thought she'd be funny and release some air out of my mattress. We both thought she had properly closed the nozzle, but obviously that hadn't been the case. I never really got back to sleep and was very cold for the rest of the night.                                                                            

Part III to follow (probably tomorrow. . .)

**Photo credit (not credited on a photo-by-photo basis) belongs to either Brent Mecham or Lara Nelson**