5 posts tagged “washington”

Yes, I'm still alive.

I suppose most of you already knew that, but it occurred to me that reading that last post and then not seeing another post for so long might lead someone to think that I'd fallen off the mountain or something.

No, we didn't fall off the mountain.  But neither did we make the summit.  We turned back at 13,200' because of fatigue and the possibility of worsening weather.  We probably could have summited, but if the weather had worsened it would have jeopardized our descent considering how tired we already were.  So we made the difficult but always correct choice, and we turned around to try another day.

And for the record, I did attempt to post blog entries from the mountain.  On the evening of the first day, at 11,500' on the Ingraham Glacier, I tried to post a short update from our tent.  My phone indicated that there were two bars of digital service, but it was roaming service.  I told it to go ahead and connect anyway, but it failed.  Then, a while later, I made another attempt when the phone had one bar of digital Sprint service.  Same result:  couldn't make the connection.  I'll try this again next year when we tackle the Emmons route, because I think we may get a better signal on that side of the mountain.  But I wouldn't hold out much hope of getting a live blog entry from Mt. Rainier without satellite service at this point.  In any case, here is what I would have posted:

Ingraham
At the flats.  Very tired.  Am feeling the altitude but made decent time today.  Hope the weather holds out.  More from the summit hopefully.  8/11/2007 18:33.

So there you have it.  Sadly, there has been no mountaineering activity since then.  Honestly, I have to admit at this point that I burned myself out on climbing this summer.  It will be nice to take it a little easier in the "off-season" and focus on lots of other things going on in my life right now...

It's been a little while since my last climbing update, and it's been busy.  Busy enough that I'm quite ready for a break, in fact.

A couple of weeks ago, there was big talk about heading up to Cashmere Mountain (8501') to knock off another top-100 peak in Washington.  The weather kind of turned sour, though, and instead we just went over to Mount Pilchuck (5340') with a bunch of friends.  It was supposed to just be a nice easy day hanging out on the trail, and it would have been, except for the swarms upon swarms of bugs!  I'd just picked up some DEET containing bug juice from REI, so I thought I would be prepared, but not so.  As it turned out, the bugs that plagued us all the way up the mountain were flies, which aren't afraid of DEET.  So the only solution was to move as fast as possible.  Of course, the problem with that is we were with our friends who don't climb mountains every other day, so their pace was relatively leisurely.  Not a problem, except for the bugs...  so I decided to innovate a bit by hiking down a couple hundred feet every time I caught up to them.  That way, I could keep moving, and I wouldn't have to breathe the bugs constantly.  The only solace was at the summit, where the bugs seemed to let up a little.  Still, it was a fun day and I got to hike with some friends with whom I haven't been outdoors in a while.

Last week, I took a couple of days off of work, and was really looking forward to our attempt on Mount Olympus (7969').  The approach involves 17.5 miles of hiking on the Hoh River Trail through the heart of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park.  It promised to be beautiful terrain, capped with a glacier climb to the high point of the Olympic Peninsula.  We budgeted a leisurely 4.5 days...  our first day involved just taking the car ferry across Puget Sound, getting a permit at the ranger station, and then sleeping in our car - instead of tent - at the trailhead campground.  On reflection, this would be a critical decision.

Our second day, we hiked about 11 miles into Lewis Meadows, arriving in the afternoon and finding a nice sheltered campsite.  There were some gorgeous sights along the way...  but also a lot of damage in terms of footbridges being washed out and fallen trees, not to mention a number of mudslides and subsidences.  In any case, we stayed pretty dry that first day despite an intermittent shower throughout the day.  That night, we spent a restful evening, knowing that we only had to go another 6 miles or so to get to Glacier Meadows.  It was so dark that night I couldn't see my hand right in front of my face.

The third day was a slog through a constant rain, up about 2700' over 6 miles.  I got a new pack for this trip, since I didn't have a proper expedition pack before.  I chose the Osprey Crescent 85, and though it's a heavy pack, the suspension and stowage systems work really well to keep it balanced on your hips and back.  I also got the rain fly for free, which was critical on this trip.  Through 3 days of constant rain, the contents of my pack remained mostly dry.  Next time, I'll probably put my critical stuff (down, extra base layer, etc.) in a small plastic bag as well, to make sure.  Anyway, by the time we reached Glacier Meadows, I was getting cold and I was completely drenched.  And worse, the rain started to seep through tent, ever so slowly, but surely.  Not at the seams, where you'd expect, but just because there was residual moisture on the inside of the tent, so the water would wick through the nylon.  Good thing we didn't sleep in the tent that first night, because this seepage would have started a day sooner if we had.  It was a pretty miserable day and night as it was.  By the morning, we'd have a good pint or so of water on the floor of the tent.  Fortunately, our sleeping bags were still dry, through careful placement and sleeping pad management.

And of course, all this rain meant that there was no way we'd be summiting.  In fact, we didn't even make an attempt from Glacier Meadows.  The visibility was horrible and the rain was constant.  We decided to pack it up and trudge the entire 17.5 miles back to the car the next day.  Our tents were in no shape to stand another night of rainfall, and our decision was validated by the ranger we met at the Olympic Guard Station.  He told us that another 3-4 inches were expected overnight.  This was a painful day, descending with 60 lbs. on my back with rain constantly falling.  J even fell into a creek on one of the iffy log crossings we had to make.  Misery indeed.

So that was a pretty painful 35 miles to hike to not make our goal, carrying a bunch of equipment (ice axe, crampons, for example) that we didn't even use.  At the start, we all wanted to go despite the forecast, because we all thought it'd be rewarding to make that hike through the rain forest and enjoy nature, etc.  And I agree with that still...  but it's one of those things that you do once.  And that's quite enough, thank you very much.  Next time I have a 4 day climb planned and the weather looks rainy, I'm going to head to the movie theater and catch up on some movies instead.

All this brings us finally to Cashmere again.  We decided to give it a go this Sunday, starting from home at 4 in the morning and hitting the trailhead right around 7.  Most of the distance is covered on maintained trail, with our only hiccup being a missed fork in the trail.  It was one of those times when you just keep on truckin' and then you think to yourself, "hm, maybe we should have turned at that last fork..."  Fortunately, we stopped and consulted the maps and got back on track quickly.

The climb actually felt pretty easy.  In what seemed like no time, we were up past Lake Caroline and looking for a place where our guidebook had told us to depart the maintained trail.  We did so somewhere near a switchback, and headed over in the general direction of the mountain.  The only downside to all this was that because were doing this is summer, we did have to traverse across a couple of meadows, taking care to avoid too much damage to the foliage.  In due time, we gained a ridge and there was a trail of sorts along this ridge right up to the col.  We were even treated to a mountain goat sighting.  From the col, it's a Class 3 scramble across some boulders and rocks over to the north ridge of Cashmere.  This took a while, and I was glad that T had joined us with his experience.  He set the pace and picked the route with ease.  We were on the summit in 6 hours.

Bugs were again a problem on this hike, but this time we were prepared.  In addition to the 30% DEET stuff, I mixed it with REI's "Jungle Juice" which is a concoction of chemicals that are supposed to deter just about everything.  And for the most part it worked...  I got only bites on my head under my Buff where I didn't have bug juice going.  There was one exception to this:  humongous horseflies apparently aren't afraid of any chemicals, because those bastards hounded us all the way up and down once we left the trail.  And those guys bite!  I suppose it was nature's way of punishing us for leaving the trail.

Unfortunately, the descent would take us just as long.  Descending a scramble is always worse than the ascent, and this was no exception.  It took us what seemed like forever to get back to the trail.  And from there, it didn't speed up terribly much because K had developed some horrific blisters due to new socks.  We kept the pace pretty steady, but it took us all of 6 hours to reach the car.

After dinner in Leavenworth and the long drive home, I was quite ready to take a break.  We had done two 17 mile days in two weeks, and over 50 total miles.  We had considered an attempt on Mt. Rainier this coming weekend, but K's blisters mean he's out for sure, and it was the perfect excuse for the rest of us to take a breather as well.  So we'll be making another attempt on Mt. Rainier in two weeks, but for the time being, I'm going to hit the beach or something this weekend to relax.

Summited Granite Mountain (5629') after work on Tuesday.  This was the first "real" mountain I summited last year when we started training for Rainier, so it was an interesting hike to go back there.  This time, it was a completely different mountain in terms of terrain and hazards.  We had to deal with an avalanche chute and blowing snow on our first attempt last year, which included a bushwhack to get back to the trail after we glissaded too far.  On our second, successful attempt, last year, we still had to deal with a lot of snow and a steep ridge, kicking steps and all the other stuff that has since become second nature.  This time, we had none of that.  This is the difference between a July versus an early May/late April ascent.

Indeed, this time, it was maintained trail all the way up to about 5200', and then a scramble up fairly stable rock the rest of the way.  It route the trail takes is, of course, longer than the direct snow climb.  The meandering route actually took us about 2 hours, 20 minutes to ascend, including the scramble.  We didn't really anticipate such a long scramble at the end, so I was a little disappointed that we didn't make our goal of 2 hours.  That and we pushed it really hard at the beginning, which was alright for a while.  But J practically had to run to keep up with K and me on the flatter portions, so it wasn't working out for her.  And then we got passed (even though we were bookin' it by our standards) by this insane trail running dude...  right on the steepest part of the trail.  So we pushed even harder, which was a bad move because I burned out and had to chill at a slower pace to keep it going.  Oh well, a trail runner I am not!

Anyway, I probably wouldn't have even bothered with the scramble given that we were running kind of behind and the light was going to fade fast on our descent, but we kind of had a score to settle with Granite.  See, of the three of us, I'm actually the only one who'd summited this mountain.  K and J had both gotten stomach ailments mysteriously last year while attempting this mountain and had to turn around!  So we bounded onto the scramble determined to reverse the fortunes.

Unfortunately, this mysterious ailment would strike again!  By the time we had gone about a third of the way up the scramble, J called it quits citing severe stomach pains.  What on earth is with this mountain?  K and I hit the summit maybe 20 minutes later and then headed down.  We knew it was going to be a long descent with the headlamps, but we definitely wanted to get off of the scramble with plenty of natural light left.

And to continue our misfortunes, J had also somehow forgotten her headlamp, making the descent slower and a little more clumsy than we would like.  I happened to have a tiny LED light on my keychain which she used for spot lighting while I put my headlamp on diffuse mode and tried to light the way from behind her while K lead the way.  In this way, we finally managed to get back to the cars in the same amount of time it took us to climb up.

Oh well...  I guess the only other thing to say is the about the bugs...  friggin' bugs.  At least we had some insect repellent, but I still got a couple of nice bites.  Bleh.  And you wonder why I prefer to high elevation glaciers....  hahahha.

Summited Colchuck Peak (8705' - GPS Track) on Saturday with my team during a long climb and descent.  We covered the 14 mile round trip in a single day since we didn't have a backcountry camping permit.  I further experimented with going fast and light, minimizing my carry weight to just the essentials.  Unfortunately, this meant that I forgot my camera during the packing process, but you can see grliepixie's photos on flickr.

Heeding the long day ahead, we drove to the trailhead after work on Friday and slept there (which is allowed without any permit) before waking at 4 AM and hitting the trail a little over an hour later.  With the summer solstice just past, there was already enough light to navigate without the headlamps at that hour.  The first five miles of the route are on a well-maintained trail going up to Colchuck Lake.  We passed several waterfalls and crossed over Mountaineers Creek on a couple of foot bridges during this stage of the climb.  It's a fairly easy grade, gaining about 2000' over 5 miles.  Good warm up for the grueling push ahead.

We stopped at Colchuck Lake to filter some water and refill the water bottles.  We also watched the "sunrise" over Dragontail Peak.  It was about 8 AM.  We were making pretty good time, and we had hardly seen anybody on the trail at all.

Just before the trip, J and I had purchased hydration pouches for our new backpacks, which are "hydration compatible."  I find this designation somewhat silly in that any backpack that can carry a couple of pounds is really "hydration compatible" to the extent that you just have to stick the tube out through the zipper.  But I guess what it really means is that there is a designated place to stow the pouch and a designated (preferably designed so water can get out but not in) slot for the tube to thread.  Anyway, in the spirit of collateral damage, I figured since we have this great feature we might as well spend even more money to use it.  Now the rest of the world has probably known this for years, but what a difference!  Using the hydration tube totally changed the way I drank water on this trip.  With the Nalgene bottles, I would have to stop and sip every once in a while, breaking the rhythm with these "water breaks."  Either that or risk spilling precious water all over myself as I tried to drink in stride.  The tube lets me just bite and suck water in stride with no problems.  I drank more than I usually would, and stayed well-hydrated throughout the day even as the sun came out and beat down on us later.  Our guides on Rainier last year had told us not to use the hydration tubes on the upper mountain because they tend to freeze, and I will still heed their advice for next week's climb, but for anything below 10,000' in the summertime, I'm going for the hydration pouch every time.

Whereas I had plenty of water on this one, I found myself low on food.  I'd underestimated while packing, so I ended up blowing through all of my food by the time we hit the col, and had to mooch off of other team members for the descent.  I also didn't have enough sugary stuff, and found myself feeling a bit down and hypoglycemic before teammates pumped me full of chocolate and candy.

Alright, back to the trail.  After skirting Colchuck Lake to the west, we gaitered up and brought the ice axes out to hit the glacier.  We made it up the moraine and onto a boulder field in an attempt to join up with the glacier proper towards the east side.  It turns out that we didn't have to make the detour across the boulders, as the snow that we had been on did join up with the rest of the glacier higher up, but we couldn't tell that from below.  So we went across the boulder field and out onto the glacier proper at about 6000'.  The next 2700' were steep.  Very steep.  We put the crampons on at this point, as the snow was hard and icy all the way up to the col.  Without them, it would have been too dangerous to continue.

For the next several hours we slogged up the glacier, one step at a time.  I alternated between front pointing on the steeper sections and flat footing on some of the less steep sections.  Of course, the trick is to keep changing it up as you go up to keep your legs and feet from getting too tired in one method or another.  During one of the stops, we had to fix J's crampons since she had recently ditched her plastic boots in favor of the soft, lighter synthetic/leather.  This meant that her crampons needed to be adjusted for a smaller boot, but for the life of us we couldn't figure out how to get it small enough.  She actually went up a pretty steep slope with the crampons maladjusted before I forced her and I to stay behind the others while I figured it out.  As I expected, it was a very simple operation:  just turning over the connector bar did the trick.  The difficulty was in figuring out the trick itself.

So it was that J and I ended up a good 10 minutes behind for the last 1500' of the glacier climb.  We pushed hard though, and by the time we reached the col, we were just behind everyone else.  I think they also took it a little easy, but hey, I can take some credit, right?

The reward for all the hard work at this point was that we were treated to some absolutely beautiful views of the lake we had left behind.  In the increasing morning light, the colors were just the richest blues and greens you could imagine.  The photos barely do the scene justice.

At the col, we removed our crampons and had a snack before heading up for the last half mile to the summit around the back.  Aside from a traverse across a steep patch of snow, it was pretty straightforward and simple.  Some light scrambling across boulders, and then just a walk across an alpine meadow at the top.  The summit itself was reached by taking a short scramble on an outcrop.  It was 2 PM.

We found the Mountaineers' canister there, but the lid was missing, along with the summit register.  I was kind of bummed, since I haven't had the privilege of signing one of those since Mt. Rainier last year.  We didn't find one on Baker, and since I didn't take the last scramble up Wedge, I'd missed that one too.  So it was really too bad.  On the other hand, we were treated to such a beautiful vista that it hardly mattered.  We could see the formidable north face of Mt. Stuart beckoning, as well as the entire valley we had just come up through.  We had seen peeks of Rainier, and we could see the bases of Glacier and Baker as well.  The clouds enveloped their peaks.

While were clearing off of the summit, a couple of Mountaineers from Tacoma were just reaching the summit.  They were kind enough to take a picture and we chatted a bit about our respective groups before heading down.

There's something I'm really coming to realize with every climb I undertake:  the descent is, emotionally if not physically, much more difficult than the ascent.  This one was no exception.  Some teammates put their crampons back on for the descent down the glacier, but I plunge stepped all the way down.  There just isn't much to say about this, other than it sucks to be on a glacier plunge stepping in the hellish heat of the afternoon.  I re-upped the sunblock and all, and tried to keep cool, but in the end it's just uncomfortable.  At least my knees didn't start acting up on this one.

Anyway, as if descending on snow wasn't bad enough, then we ran out of snow and got back onto the trail.  Trail descents are just as bad as snow descents, but for different reasons.  This is where the feet really start to hurt, and if I don't have the laces up nice and tight, my toes will be too free to move and inevitably be slammed into the front of my boot.  Making sure my upper laces are tight really helps this situation, as it takes some of the pressure and redistributes it to my shin and upper foot instead of my toes.  Anyway, I brought the trekking poles for this one because I knew the approach would be so darn long, and I was thankful to have them all the way down.  The nice thing is that I got so heads down during the descent (I was in the back at this point just following everyone) that I missed a whole bunch of landmarks, and before I knew it, we were back across the footbridges.  So there wasn't so much languishing anticipation that usually goes on in my mind during descents.  I hate that feeling, where you're thinking "man, we should have hit that fallen log by now...  where is it?" or "I wonder how much longer it was between the fork and that bridge..."

We hit the cars at just a tad after 8 PM, 15 hours after we'd left.  Not the fastest on the mountain to be sure, but it was still a great climb and a great time with friends.  When the whole endeavor began, we had it in our heads to possibly try for the two-fer with Dragontail, but after taking a look at the route we would have had to take and gauging our tiredness, we decided there was no way.  So we'll be back.

With Colchuck, the 32nd highest mountain in Washington state, that makes a tiny 4 out of the top 100 for me.  Pales in comparison to T's 34, which he celebrated by allowing 1/3 of us to reach the summit before him.  Hah.  I'm glad we got this one out of the way in June, because I think the glacier would fall apart pretty badly later in the summer, with a lot more exposed rock and just general annoyance on that steep section.  All in all a great early-mid season climb.

Summited Mount Rainier (14,410', 4392m) just after 8:00 AM PDT, August 21, 2006.

The climb of the upper mountain really was harder than any other climb we've ever done, and there were many times when I thought about giving it up.  But I kept coming back to the basics when those thoughts entered my head:  breathing and taking it one step at a time.  The reward was truly beyond words...  I had to swallow back tears at the summit.  It's hard to describe the feeling, because it was more than tears of joy, it was just an overwhelming tide of so many different emotions.

We met at RMI's "base camp" in Ashford at 8 AM on Sunday morning.  In 24 hours, we would be toughing it out at 14,000 feet.  After some brief introductory information from our team of 3 guides, we piled into a bus and drove the first 4000 feet to Paradise, where the climb began.  The first part of the climb is now all too familiar, this being the fourth time I've made the ascent to Camp Muir.  Only this time, it was for real.

Our team of 6 (A, J, K, M, R, and myself) were joined by a couple of women from New York and a guy from Texas.  Unfortunately, almost immediately there were troubles.  J had severe stomach pains, and by the first break on the Skyline Trail she was really hurting.  After the break, she started falling behind the rest of the group, and I didn't see her again until we'd regrouped at Camp Muir some 4 hours later.

So it was that the rest of us made most of the trek up to Muir in concerned silence.  The route we took deviated from the popular boot path that I'd become familar with slightly, taking us over some exposed rock at one point on the snowfield, but was otherwise the same as the route I'd done just about every other week since July 4 weekend.  It took us over 5 hours to make Camp Muir, and to be honest, I didn't like the slow pace too much.

Once at Muir, we got a short briefing on the upper mountain, and some instructions on how to prepare equipment-wise for the upper climb.  J managed to struggle her way up to Camp Muir, and made it before the cut-off that RMI sets for attempting the upper mountain.  Unfortunately, she was in no shape to tackle the feat, not being able to eat and still in pain.  I was surprised that she pushed onward to Muir, but it was good to have her with us, and I felt a solidarity in our party as I haven't felt before.  So it was that she sent us off the next morning, in the wee hours, while she stayed behind at camp.  It was a huge disappointment to her, and for the rest of us, as we'd all trained so hard for this.  And frustrating that it wasn't a lack of preparation that prevented her from reaching the peak, but just bad luck.

I spent a restless evening in the bunkhouse, finally dozing off after the sun went down.  But it was a short-lived nap, as the guides returned to wake us up not too long after midnight.  I donned my upper mountain outfit:  long underwear, shell pants, long-sleeve upper base layer, fleece, wool socks, plastic boots, gaiters, crampons, liner gloves, headlamp, and helmet.  We were also supplied with an avalanche beacon.  In my pack were my waterproof shell, snow pants, down parka, camera, food, 3 liters of water, heavy gloves, GPS unit, glacier glasses, goggles, and sunblock.  We had ice axes in hand from Camp Muir on up.  It was as light as I dared go.

Now the worst part about having poor vision is not having to wear glasses or contacts.  It's having to wear contacts while climbing a mountain.  It took me several tries to get my contacts in after we woke up, and my eyes were irritated for a long time, no thanks to the dust that we encountered at various points on the climb, and also no thanks to the high winds.  My rope team consisted of our guide, A, M, and myself.  I took the last position on the rope for the entire ascent, and most of the descent (except for one leg where we flipped the order).  The "anchor" is a difficult place to be because it's hard to maintain any rhythm.  You have to be very patient while the rest of the team negotiates a difficult stretch ahead, and then you have to quickly negotiate the difficult stretch because the rest of the team has made it through and is pressing forward at normal pace.  I think I did alright, though.

The first part of the upper climb is the traverse across the Cowlitz Glacier.  This was fairly straightforward, as we followed a well-established path, stepping around some crevasses, and onto the Cathedral Gap.  This was a scramble up loose rock and gravel, with lots of dust being kicked up.  Also, it was really the first time I'd used crampons on rock, which, I have to say, sucks.  My poor new crampons...  I could see sparks fly as I stepped onto rock at times.

Crossing the Cathedral Gap, we then ascended onto the Ingraham Glacier.  We took our first break here, where I was already feeling more tired than I wanted to.  Aside from combating the elevation and the physical demands of the climb thus far, I actually felt sleepy.  It was very cold during breaks too...  I was so glad I had my parka.  Even though I used it for only 45 minutes (3 breaks) during this whole season, I was so glad I had it.  It was hard to muster the will to eat, but I managed to down a Larabar on the Ingraham Flats before we put away the parkas and water and prepared for the dreaded Disappointment Cleaver.

The DC is the namesake of the route we took, and we'd heard reports from friends who'd attempted Rainier earlier in the season that it was a "bitch."  A bitch it was.  We got onto rock at about 11,000' and had to negotiate the loose, frustrating terrain for what seemed like 3 hours.  At one point, our guide even took a slight wrong turn and we had to backtrack about 50 feet.  It doesn't sound like much, but when every step is a gargantuan effort, 50 feet might as well have been 50 miles.  While we were on the Cleaver, I thought about giving it up at the next break, which I knew was at 12,300' at the top of the Cleaver.  That's where a lot of people throw in the towel, spent from the effort of making it up the rock scramble.  RMI maintains a stash of equipment there, and they would have been able to set me up nicely in a tent and sleeping bag, and I could get some sleep and watch the sunrise in relative comfort.  My legs were burning, my eyes were burning, my lungs were burning.  What sane person wouldn't stop?

Instead, I thought about nothing.  I focused the entirety of my consciousness into the next step, the next breath.

Finally, we pulled off for the break at 12,300'.  I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and gulped down another 600 mL of water.  And I just breathed.  I was now higher than I'd ever climbed before, by an entire 24 feet.  At this point, our guide switched A and M on the rope as M was complaining about tiredness and thought he might not be able to make it.  To his credit, our guide is probably the only reason why M was able to make it to the summit of Mt. Rainier.  If we'd been making this climb on our own, we probably would have turned around or at least sent someone back down with M instead of pushing him onward.

From there, I got into The Zone.  After that break, we made the traverse to the Emmons Shoulder in order to avoid some nasty crevasses that had opened up on the upper Ingraham Glacier.  This took us more northeasterly than the usual DC route, but I didn't really mind too much at that point.  By the time we took our third and final break before the summit, at about 13,500', I was feeling great.  The pressure breathing and just taking it one step at a time were working wonders, and I was able to take it in as the beautiful scene came alight around us while we maintained a slow, methodical pace.  We watched the sun rise at about 13,000', and I was able to shoot five pictures on our break at 13,500' before my damn batteries gave out.  I'd specifically installed fresh lithium batteries in my camera before the climb because lithiums are supposed to give the best cold weather performance.  This turned out to be true in my GPS (still running at 90% capacity at the summit) but completely false in my camera.

After the break, M started to really struggle.  I saw him actually fall over a couple of times, and later he told me that he was feeling very tired and that he might pass out.  So our guide pulled us off at about 13,800' and let a few rope teams pass while M caught his breath.  We were so close, there was no way he would let us fail now.  By sheer will, all of us made it onto the crater rim just after 8 AM.  I spent just a moment to get some water before I headed over with K and R (who'd been on a separate rope team and had their own trials and tribulations) to Columbia Crest, the true summit, with the lead guide.  Just under Columbia Crest, there is a summit register, which we signed, and that's when I really started to get emotional.  The last few feet up to the crest was just overpowering...  it was the culmination of everything.  In training for that moment, I'd climbed some 64,825' over 175 miles on 22 hikes and climbs this season.  Also, I felt so bad that J wasn't there with us.  At the summit, there was just a small patch of ice, rocks, and snow.  Nothing special by itself, but when K got up there we just embraced like we'd just been through hell.  The winds were overpowering, probably 40-50 mph, so we took a few pictures on K's and R's cameras and then got back down into the crater.

Here is the GPS Track and Profile of the ascent.  There is some weirdness at around 13,200', and I'm not sure what caused this.  Not like there were any trees in the way of a signal.  Maybe just too cold?  Also, the track ends at the crater, because in shedding all the possible weight I could for the last 200 feet up to Columbia Crest, I'd neglected to remember the GPS.  And since I took no pictures above 13,500', I personally have no proof that I was actually there.  I guess I'll have to rely on K and R's pictures for that...

As the guides reminded us at the beginning, we were but halfway.  Now we had to make it down off of the mountain.  On the upper mountain, this was actually very beautiful.  Whereas most of the ascent from Camp Muir was in darkness, now we saw all the glaciers and crevasses and mountain features in the morning light.  Next time, we are going to take some more time to enjoy the descent and take some photographs.  The ice and snow up there is just incredible.  There is really nothing like looking down into the blue depths of a crevasse and not being able to make out the bottom.  It's just an environment that is like nothing else I've ever seen...  being actually on a glacier is to be sitting on top of a living, moving being that is made of ice and snow.

In any case, we eventually made it back to Camp Muir, where J was waiting with camera in hand.  Hopefully she's got some good shots of the weary team returning to camp.  We spent a moment to rehydrate (I'd consumed the last of my 3 liters on our last break on the Ingraham Flats), and then packed up our overnight gear for the rest of the descent back to Paradise.  The Muir Snowfield was again a bitch, as the glaring sun made it a very hot, difficult descent through mushy, uneven snow.  My knee was acting up at this point and I didn't want to twist it worse than I did two weeks ago, so it was very slow going on the snowfield.  By the time I reached Pebble Creek, I was starting to feel some effects of heat exhaustion.  Fortunately, we spent a while just recovering at Pebble Creek and I downed another 600 mL of water.  The rocky part of the Skyline wasn't too bad, as at least I had firm footing, but once we got onto the asphalt, I think I can say that it was actually the worst part of the entire climb for me.  Worse than the Disappointment Cleaver.  My feet were in so much pain by the time we got to the bus...  at least on the DC I could concentrate on stepping and manage the pain, on the asphalt it was like every step just caused more pain!  Of course, I'd known this was going to happen from my experience on Mt. Adams, but chose to bring only the plastic boots in order to save on weight.  Oh well.

It's been an incredible experience, this entire season.  From the first inkling of the idea back in March, from that first hike we did in the snow on Mt. Washington, to the highest point in Washington state.  It's been an incredible learning experience, and somehow during this whole thing, Mt. Rainier became not an end unto itself, but rather a beginning.  From here, the plan is to attempt Mt. Kilimanjaro next year, and probably Aconcagua after that.  But first, I think, there is some unfinished business with Mt. Rainier.  We all plan to return, and each of us for their own reasons.  For me, I'd like to take the expedition school at some point and be able to climb the upper mountain without guides.  I'd like to take my time next time and shoot photographs and just really take it all in without feeling like we're on a schedule.  But that's next time.  For now, back to reality for a while.