owenel wrote:Thank you for the incredibly informative replies. This is a great forum with a lot of helpful and knowledgeable members. Baker is sounding like a great introductory mountain for me. Eventually I do want to climb Rainier, but maybe someday I'll have the experience to do it without paying for a guide.

Many of the greatest American alpine climbers have trained on Rainier. Mexcano volcanoes aside, I'm seeing words like "introductory" and "prep" and "experience". You can't go wrong with RMI and the Whittakers.

DersuUzala wrote:

owenel wrote:Thank you for the incredibly informative replies. This is a great forum with a lot of helpful and knowledgeable members. Baker is sounding like a great introductory mountain for me. Eventually I do want to climb Rainier, but maybe someday I'll have the experience to do it without paying for a guide.

Many of the greatest American alpine climbers have trained on Rainier. Mexcano volcanoes aside, I'm seeing words like "introductory" and "prep" and "experience". You can't go wrong with RMI and the Whittakers.

Definitely, the Mountains in the lower 48 might not have the huge summit height ASL numbers but that doesnt mean there are not challenging routes with huge vertical relief over surrounding terrain that will help train (mentally and physically) you for almost anything found overseas. Rainier alone has enough to challenge anyone for many years.

Check this ppl out also: http://www.aai.cc/

I obtained Rainier the hard way. I personally like Mount Baker just a little bit more. I've been on Baker in perfect weather and in a White Out with heavy winds and even when it was a White Out I had a good time. Now if I were you I would try to get out as much as possible in the mountains near your home, and then take a glacier class and know all your glacier stuff perfect. Then if you get that far, try to get associated with someone who is willing to be on your glacier team (make sure all the folks know 100% well what they know there stuff) and then be sure to have at least one person who's been there before. I prefer to go with friends and partners than going guided. But then again it depends on how much work your willing to put into it, I never have gone guided and have been doing pretty well with trips. Heck I've even been the leader quite a few times. But if you don't prepare a lot, well then guided is your safe bet.