SummitPost - Mount Rainer -- Trip Reports

Mount Rainier, WA - July 1996
Story By: Mike Wooldridge
We started from Paradise (~5000ft) at 7:00a for our hike to Camp Muir (~10,000ft), which would be our base camp for the Rainier summit. The team was made of Mark Turner, Chad Harper, his father Robert Nickel, and myself. Everyone's pack was loaded down with 40-50 pounds of camping gear and food for a few nights stay at Camp Muir. Getting started was tough and it took me about an hour of hiking until I started getting in the hiking groove. There was alot of snow on the trail (asphalt sidewalk) that led to the snow field that will take you to camp muir. We saw very few people at the bottom and stopped to take a break about every fifteen minutes to let our legs rest. It was a very nice morning with little cloud cover above, and the sun was shining. Upon entering the snow field we looked far ahead to the top and got a good look of where we were headed. It was a long way up there, about 4000 vertical feet. Once we were in the snow, every man had his own hiking pace, and was trying to use the previous hikers steps to their advantage. Once the leader found a good place to stop and let the others catch up, we would take off the packs and have a maintenance break. The maintenance break would consist of mainly rest, sun block, food, and water. Three to four hours into the field we could see Mount Adams, Hood, and St. Helens with half the mountain disintegrated by the 1980 eruption. By now, several other hikers, snow boarders, and skiers were on the snow field too. With the heavy packs gaining ground to Muir was very slow. After several more hours of hiking, we could see the small ranger station shack at Muir. I was the last one to reach Muir and when I did I was relieved to see that the rest of the guys had already found a great camp site that was dug into the snow, complete with a snow couch. There was enough room for 3 tents. Mark's friends James and Lynn were due at Muir later in the day.
After getting settled in, Chad started the first batch of snow water and dug a hole in the snow a few yards away. This became our source of water for the next few days. The snow looked very clean at first, but after melting it I could see traces of bugs and dirt particles settling at the bottom. A small water filter would have been nice but the best we could do was to add a purification pill.

While the water was boiling, I had a look around camp. There was plenty of people camping there. A few people were practicing rope team travel and self arrest techniques. In the primitive shelter, hikers had 3 stoves going cooking dinner. One guy came out saying "It is too damn hot in there and smells like fuel. I cant see how they take it." It was nice to be outside. A lady must have had some heavy duty sun block on because her face was totally white. Other climbers and snow boarders were arriving quite often. This was a cool place. The low covering clouds had cleared and the view of Adams and St. Helens was awesome. James and his girlfriend arrived later that day and camped downhill from us.

I had a dried spaghetti meal and pudding for dinner. It was fast and clean up was easy. My thermarest sleeping pad made a great sitting pad on our snow couch. Mark and I rested up and started drinking water and melting snow for the summit attempt later that night. We all got our gear together and ready to go so the start in the morning would be fast.

We went to sleep around 7:30 or 8:00. It was still light out and took me about an hour to get to sleep. I had never slept on a bed of snow before. I was very comfortable in my new down bag. I woke up around mid- night and could hear teams getting ready to leave. Chad got us up around 3 am. I woke up ready to go, I had plenty of good sleep. Mark had a hard time getting up because he was too comfortable. It wasn't that cold outside, no wind and 30 degrees. We all got our crampons and packs on. Chad and mark got the rope ready and I helped Robert mount his head lamp on his helmet.

We were ready to go! We could see the RMI guide team far ahead at the top of the first pass. There must have been 25 people or more going up that slope. It looked like a string of Christmas lights marching up hill.

Once again we found ourselves getting in the hiking mood again, only this time everyone had to hike at the same pace because we were roped together. By the time we reached the top of the first pass, everyone was in sync. We got to our first exposed rock area and we saw a team of two men and a women coming down. One of them was already sick and were heading back to Camp Muir. We were now crossing Ingraham flats, a glacier covered field, where the glaciers leveled out after they had moved down the side of the mountain. From where they moved down the mountain, the glaciers were breaking up into huge chunks of ice that were everywhere, some as big as houses. We also passed several deep crevasses on the flats. The trail would basically wind around these gaping holes. Looking down into the crevasses, the color of ice turned to a darker blue. Across the flats was another area that had about 5-6 teams camping there. We crossed the flats and we could see where the trial split into 3 directions. There was a high, medium, and low trail. The low and medium trials plainly ended into the side of a large crevasse opening. Mark could see what was developing and took the high trial. When we all passed the small snow bridge that was across the crevasse, I stopped and took a picture of the gaping hole. We could see the RMI group about half way up Disappointment Clever, our next big obstacle. The clever is a rock formation that is a small mountain in itself. Anywhere on this clever is where most teams turn back, thus the name "Disappointment". The trail zigzagged several times (about 18-19 was the count on the way down). The trail was also very steep so we rested at the beginning of a corner and the middle before the next corner. The rangers at Muir keep the trail marked with wands to help negociate the crevasses. Half way up we reached a bare rocky area where we took a long maintenance break. I put some Dr. Schoals padding on both of my heals, I could feel a blister starting to develop. A team of three guys caught up with us at this resting area. The leader was doing fine, this was his third attempt on the mountain, but he had never made the summit. One of the guys was feeling bad and they were thinking about leaving him there while the other two went on. We started hiking again, we didn't get far when Robert noticed we had a knot in the rope. Robert and Chad got the knot out and we started again. I don't know how it happened, but we got another knot in the rope. After finally getting the rope fixed, we were finally on our way up the second half of the clever. The trail continued to zigzag. We were almost finished with the clever when I looked behind us an noticed that the team of three were headed down, Disappointment Clever claims another victim. By now we saw teams coming down that had been to the summit and we also reached a part of the mountain that was not as steep. There was a great resting place between two large cornices. The sun was really on us now and everyone was reapplying sun block. We took an extended maintenance break and we were on our way again. The hike up the mountain was getting harder and steeper again, my legs were getting tired. Every time we stopped I would look back at the trail that we covered and the awesome view of the glacier valley below, little did I realize how far we still were from the summit. We had just passed over another snow bridge when we had to pull over and let the RMI team pass us on their way down. I think there was 6 rope teams each with 6 people. We patiently waited for 30 minutes for them to pass. While lying on the snow with my ice ax firmly dug in and my arm rapped around it, I got too relaxed and caught myself dozing off twice. The early wake-up call and the summit climb was wearing me down and I got sleepy. By the time the last RMI team passed, the first RMI group was reaching the cornices. We just lost 30 minutes of precious climbing time. The next team on the way down was a man and women ranger team that was escorting (rescuing) a younger man and a women from dehydration. I could see the ranger and Mark talking for what seemed like 5-10 minutes. This was no "hi, how 'ya doing" conversation because it was taking too long. I thought lets get going we just took a 30 minute break. Well another 15 minute break was in the working. The rangers passed us and we huddled next to each other while Mark told us what was going on. The rangers recommend we start down now because the snow it getting slushy and dangerous. I thought to myself, is that it, we can handle slushy snow. I spoke up and said lets go for it. It was only 1:30 and the weather was perfect. We all agreed to continue on, we had come up the mountain too far, and we were only 900ft and 1.5 hours from the summit. We started up the engines again an got to an area where we could ditch our packs for the final push to the summit. We were low on water, so we put small amounts of snow in the water jugs and laid them on top of the gear, hoping some of it would be melted when we returned. The first obstacle was a very steep snow staircase about 100ft high that took us about 30 minutes for all of us to get up. At this point I thought that the climb would never end. We had been hiking since 4:00am and I was very skeptical that there was a summit. None the less, I just put my head down and kept hiking and hiking. Then I looked up and I saw my first glimmer of hope, it appeared that there was somewhat of an end to the trail far ahead. I could see where there was a bit of exposed rock, I was so happy to see it. I started shouting "is that it?", over and over to the rest of the team. I thought it was the summit. They were not as excited as I was, and I couldn't understand why. We stopped and studied it for a minute and knew it was the edge of Columbia Crest, a volcano crater that just preceded the summit and the beginning of the end. Much to my surprise we reached the Crest in a short while. Once we dropped inside the crater, we could see the summit just ahead, it was just a few more minutes away, and we had one more small incline to hike up. The Columbia Crest was huge, an almost perfectly round rock wall around the edges, once the erupting point on Rainier thousands of years ago. We started for the summit and again I found ourselves reaching it quickly. This was finally it! Mark and Chad were the first ones on top (14,410ft). I could see them jumping up and down and hugging each other, while Robert and I finished. The summit was great, we had reached it at last and we had the summit to ourselves.

But wait, as I was taking pictures, a couple from Germany had just sumitted after us from the other side. They were equally as excited and could see that we were overwhelmed by reaching the top. We took turns taking group pictures of each other. We could see where Seattle was supposed to be, but all I could tell is that it was a cluster of stuff that appeared to be where a city was. You could not see anything that distinctly told you it was Seattle, the Kingdome or Space Needle were not visible.

We rested and enjoyed the summit for 10 more minutes, and it was time to say good bye. The German couple had gone their own way and we started back down through the Columbia Crest. It was around 3:00p. Standing on the Rainier summit gave the whole team a morale boost for the long hike down. It was going to be much easier getting down, but even more dangerous. Before we left the crest we reminded each other not to get lazy and pay attention to what was going on, the trip was only half over. One big slip or slide and you could easily could a bad situation for the entire team. We made it back down to our gear only to see that not much snow had melted in the bottles. We repacked and started on down. Being at the end of the rope, I could see the rest of the team ahead. I was watching everyone's crampons and making sure they were not getting clogged with slushy snow and alerted them when they did so they could remove it with their ice axes. I was very alert and felt that much needed second burst of energy. We were taking breaks less often and the snow was getting more firm as the sun started to set behind the mountain. Every once in a while someone's legs would give in and they would sit down, this was a sign that we needed to rest. The sun was still on our upper bodies, so I pulled the hood over my head to protect my face from sunburn and the cold wind.

The water situation was getting worse. We didn't have much between us. We reached the divided cornices rest area and took a long break and talked more about how we felt and the rest of the hike down Disappointment Clever. I could hear the constant drip of water on the snow and decided to take advantage and strategically placed my bottle beneath it. Mark took a picture of the event. We again added small amounts of snow to the bottles and started again. The trail continued to zigzag down the top of the clever. We had come a long way from the summit and could see Ingraham flats below with several climbers nestled into the glacier. Nobody really noticed, because I was on the end, but I was getting my share of noodle legs. I had slipped and sat down like everyone else, but I was quick to recover and not let the rope get tight and stop the teams pace. I kept barking out "keep those crampons clean everyone" just to let everyone know I was watching them. We got down off the clever with no problems. We were all exhausted, but knew we still needed to get home to Camp Muir. As we passed through the flats we observed the awesome glacier ice falls and the "all inspiring spire".

All I could think about was getting back and sitting down. It was getting late, the sun was setting, fatigue and dehydration were setting in. At the top of the last ridge we could see Camp Muir far below, it was all down hill from here. We got to the bottom and took another break before the last stretch into camp. Robert was dehydrated and had started having trouble seeing things properly, he definitely was using his reserves to get down, as we all were. When we reached camp it was 8:00p, we had been hiking for 16 hours. Other climbers were there to congratulate us, along with the ranger that had done the rescue and advised us to go back down. We told the ranger that we were feeling good at the time he saw us, so we decided to go for the summit.

We all needed water badly. Mark and Chad started the stoves and I got the snow ready to boil. Mark's lips turned very white and he was shivering. He said he would be all right and that he just needed water to warm up a little. I quickly fixed some Lipton noodles, so Mark could get his dinner before it turned black outside. We all ate and crawled into bed. I thought about what we had come here to do and now it was over. All of those nights we spent hiking and training had really paid off. Endurance was the key to success, and a little good weather. Sixteen hours of hiking is very tough on the body, so we were all in bed by 9:00, but it took me almost 2 hours to get to sleep. I was still thinking about the climb and the summit.

The next morning was another beautiful day. We broke camp and loaded our packs for the hike down. We left around 10:00 and it was already warming up. I put on shorts and sun block. Again, hiking down was so much more fun than the hike up. You could take some very long steps and also slide a little on the snow. There was a group of three ladies that started a long time after us, and needless to say, they passed us; I guess we were still moving pretty slow. Because it was the last day of the holiday weekend, the number of people on the snow field had quadrupled. As we reached the bottom, there were tourist and other visitors that were looking at us like we were heroes returning from war. "Did you make it to the top? How was it? What was it like?", they were asking. We were being interviewed by anyone with a camera. It was a great feeling telling them what it was like up there. Every year many people go for the summit and only half make it to the top. On this trip, 4 out of 4 made it on our team, but I still think about the team of three that turned back on Disappointment Clever. Our team work and determination had truly paid off.

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