mtn.goat
New member
Hello All,
Well I finally got all my pictures loaded and picked the best ones from my trip to Rainier. For those of you who didn't know I went to Washington (the state) about a month ago to climb Mt Rainier with some friends. We arrived in Seattle on a Wednesday night and had allotted 5 days up on the mountain to summit. Mt Rainier is a "big/true mountain" in that it creates it's own weather. This is partly compounded by the fact that it is the first large object inland from the west coast and therefore get's A LOT of snow (and weather) due to the oreographic effect (clouds rise and as the air temperature drops they drop their precip). It was full winter conditions and this winter the area had seen more snow then in quite a while. It's also dangerous with unpredictable weather, avalanches and crevasses.
Friday we started our ascent from the Paradise parking lot at around 10:30. We had to hike roughly 5miles from 5,000' to Camp Muir (10,000') where we'd be setting up base camp. We made great time doing it in 4-4.5 hours with full packs and in a whiteout. It was interesting doing the route finding when you couldn't see 50' in front of you and you’re in a complete whiteout. At times it was hard to tell what was in front of you or up from down as the snow and sky seemed to blend into one. It was a unique experience as well because we had left treeline behind at Paradise so we didn't see a single tree from the minute we left the car until we returned a few days later. The hike was strenuous but not particularly bad except for the final ~1000’ over a vast snowfield. With the whiteout conditions and lack of trees and landmarks it was very difficult to tell distance or progress. Camp Muir seemed so close and even though my friend told me we still had almost 1000’ of climbing I took off at a quick pace only to quickly realize that he was right. It felt like I was on a treadmill with Camp Muir on the horizon (on the rare occasion when the clouds would lift) poking fun at my apparent slow progress. I pulled ahead of the group and made it to Camp Muir first, feeling the altitude a bit around 9500-9700’. Camp Muir is a series of outhouses and bunkhouse/cabin built of stone over 50 years ago. The walls were covered in ice, and it was rather dark but it was much easier to sleep there then build a snow cave. It was also very nice to be able to spread your gear out. I understand that my concept of cold is skewed more then most people after spending the whole winter ice climbing but it was rather warm inside... with temps staying in the low to mid 20's inside.
On Saturday we woke to an amazing view of the cascades all around. I could see Mt Adams towering in the distance as well as smoke trailing out of Mt St Helens crater. It would’ve been amazing to watch that volcano blow for where we stood. We climbed up a nearby ridge and onto it's spine with a drop on either side and took in the views of the glaciers around us. Later in the day we roped up and headed over to the Nisqually Glacier to practice crevasse rescue. This was important because in the winter the crevasse's get covered with snow making it difficult to see them. They aren't completely filled in though, but rather you are walking over snow bridges without realizing it. Therefore the chances of falling in one are much higher then in the summer. We would be roped up at all times when there was risk of getting hurt from falling or when traveling over the glaciers. It took us a while to find an open crevasse due to the high snow year. We spent some time jumping into it and prussiking out of it. The sun came out and it heated up dramatically. I took my hat, gloves and jacket off... walking around in a long sleeve shirt and feeling very comfortable. Every now and then the clouds would envelope us and we'd hear a noise in the distance. They'd clear and we'd see a small surface slide had occurred well away from us. There wasn't any danger but it was really annoying to keep missing seeing the actual slide (which I thought would've been cool). We headed back, ate dinner and planned on an alpine start for the next day for a summit attempt. An alpine start entails waking very early in the morning (in our case 2AM) to try and make the summit by daybreak.
I woke just before the alarm to hear the wind howling outside. You could hear it slamming up against the shelter periodically. The alarm went off, we decided that it would be too dangerous to attempt a summit attempt in those winds, and then we all rolled over and went back to sleep. Pretty much all of Sunday was spent in the shelter as the winds were howling outside and it was snowing rather hard. It broke around 9AM just long enough for me to look outside and see another lenticular cloud over the top of the mountain (one had been seen the night before over Mt Adams). Lenticular clouds while quite beautiful to see are an indicator that bad weather will be hitting in a matter of hours. They look like large discs/plates hovering over the top of the mountain. Sure enough an hour later the winds picked up again. About an hour before sunset the weather broke allowing us to walk around and check things out. I was getting a bit stir crazy and had already finished the book I brought. We had spent the whole day sleeping, reading and having the occasional pull-up contest. We went to sleep planning to make another attempt for the summit the next day.
I woke at 2AM and could hear some wind but it wasn't too bad (compared to the previous day). We ate breakfast, got ready and were out the door by around 3. We climbed up to the base of the cliffs, leaving camp muir far below us. A reddish glow started to appear on the horizon signaling the start of the day (finally) and hopefully some warmth as it was pretty cold out. The sunrise was pretty but we didn't have too much time to enjoy it as we still had to start the technical portion of our route, the Gibraltar Ledges. This route winds its way around a massive rockface (Gibraltar Rock) that splits the Nisqually and Ingraham glaciers. You traverse across a series of ledges (each with large drops below) and then up an "exit ramp" that is pretty much a 65 degree snow/ice slope/wall that is around 500-700' long. There were four of us so we had 2 rope teams. I took a number of pictures as I enjoyed the views of the mountains, glacier, and St Helens smoking away off in the distance. The "exit ramp" was interesting as it was a "No Fall Situation." I was leading in my rope team and was climbing with no protection to stop a fall. A fall would’ve resulted in me sliding down a rather steep slope out onto the glacier and probably into a crevasse. At this point I was using both my mountaineering axe and one of my technical ice tools which I had brought just for this occasion. Slowly we made our way to the top finding ourselves at the top of the "exit ramp" at around 1:00. It had taken us almost 10 hours to reach that point. All that remained was an easy walk up the summit cone but realizing that we had 1400' of vertical to go and that the ferocious winds would make every minute of it miserable we decided to head back to Muir. The winds had been pretty bad all day but it wasn't until this point that we were fully exposed to them. The weather was looking iffy as well. Kris disappeared over the edge of what appeared to be a cliff onto a "snow bridge" which led down to the Ingraham Flats and back to camp. The smell of rotten eggs was pretty strong as it wafted out of a few crevasses in the snow (we were on an active volcano after all). One of our party almost fell in one of these falling in up to his armpits. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful. We made our way to the top of Cadaver Gap and downclimbed a very steep headwall back to camp. We arrived at Camp Muir at 3, having left almost 12 hours earlier. A warm motel room was enough of a goal to get us all packed up and heading down only 30minutes later. I was warm most of the trip but still a warm room where I didn't have to deal with melting snow or wearing the majority of my clothes definitely appealed to me. We arrived at the car and were all very happy to finally feel warmth after 4 days and 3 nights of being out in the cold.
With 2 days to spare until we had to fly out the group split up with two staying in Seattle and Kris and I heading to Vancouver to check out the mountains in BC (which were absolutely amazing). It was an amazing trip and I already can't wait to return and try a harder route. A great first step in the sport of mountaineering/alpine climbing. That's all for now although I'm sure you'll be hearing about more trips in the near future!
Pics can be found at: Direct Link to Pics or if that doesn't work try going to Roundabout Link to Pics and go to the Rainier folder (2nd pg)
Well I finally got all my pictures loaded and picked the best ones from my trip to Rainier. For those of you who didn't know I went to Washington (the state) about a month ago to climb Mt Rainier with some friends. We arrived in Seattle on a Wednesday night and had allotted 5 days up on the mountain to summit. Mt Rainier is a "big/true mountain" in that it creates it's own weather. This is partly compounded by the fact that it is the first large object inland from the west coast and therefore get's A LOT of snow (and weather) due to the oreographic effect (clouds rise and as the air temperature drops they drop their precip). It was full winter conditions and this winter the area had seen more snow then in quite a while. It's also dangerous with unpredictable weather, avalanches and crevasses.
Friday we started our ascent from the Paradise parking lot at around 10:30. We had to hike roughly 5miles from 5,000' to Camp Muir (10,000') where we'd be setting up base camp. We made great time doing it in 4-4.5 hours with full packs and in a whiteout. It was interesting doing the route finding when you couldn't see 50' in front of you and you’re in a complete whiteout. At times it was hard to tell what was in front of you or up from down as the snow and sky seemed to blend into one. It was a unique experience as well because we had left treeline behind at Paradise so we didn't see a single tree from the minute we left the car until we returned a few days later. The hike was strenuous but not particularly bad except for the final ~1000’ over a vast snowfield. With the whiteout conditions and lack of trees and landmarks it was very difficult to tell distance or progress. Camp Muir seemed so close and even though my friend told me we still had almost 1000’ of climbing I took off at a quick pace only to quickly realize that he was right. It felt like I was on a treadmill with Camp Muir on the horizon (on the rare occasion when the clouds would lift) poking fun at my apparent slow progress. I pulled ahead of the group and made it to Camp Muir first, feeling the altitude a bit around 9500-9700’. Camp Muir is a series of outhouses and bunkhouse/cabin built of stone over 50 years ago. The walls were covered in ice, and it was rather dark but it was much easier to sleep there then build a snow cave. It was also very nice to be able to spread your gear out. I understand that my concept of cold is skewed more then most people after spending the whole winter ice climbing but it was rather warm inside... with temps staying in the low to mid 20's inside.
On Saturday we woke to an amazing view of the cascades all around. I could see Mt Adams towering in the distance as well as smoke trailing out of Mt St Helens crater. It would’ve been amazing to watch that volcano blow for where we stood. We climbed up a nearby ridge and onto it's spine with a drop on either side and took in the views of the glaciers around us. Later in the day we roped up and headed over to the Nisqually Glacier to practice crevasse rescue. This was important because in the winter the crevasse's get covered with snow making it difficult to see them. They aren't completely filled in though, but rather you are walking over snow bridges without realizing it. Therefore the chances of falling in one are much higher then in the summer. We would be roped up at all times when there was risk of getting hurt from falling or when traveling over the glaciers. It took us a while to find an open crevasse due to the high snow year. We spent some time jumping into it and prussiking out of it. The sun came out and it heated up dramatically. I took my hat, gloves and jacket off... walking around in a long sleeve shirt and feeling very comfortable. Every now and then the clouds would envelope us and we'd hear a noise in the distance. They'd clear and we'd see a small surface slide had occurred well away from us. There wasn't any danger but it was really annoying to keep missing seeing the actual slide (which I thought would've been cool). We headed back, ate dinner and planned on an alpine start for the next day for a summit attempt. An alpine start entails waking very early in the morning (in our case 2AM) to try and make the summit by daybreak.
I woke just before the alarm to hear the wind howling outside. You could hear it slamming up against the shelter periodically. The alarm went off, we decided that it would be too dangerous to attempt a summit attempt in those winds, and then we all rolled over and went back to sleep. Pretty much all of Sunday was spent in the shelter as the winds were howling outside and it was snowing rather hard. It broke around 9AM just long enough for me to look outside and see another lenticular cloud over the top of the mountain (one had been seen the night before over Mt Adams). Lenticular clouds while quite beautiful to see are an indicator that bad weather will be hitting in a matter of hours. They look like large discs/plates hovering over the top of the mountain. Sure enough an hour later the winds picked up again. About an hour before sunset the weather broke allowing us to walk around and check things out. I was getting a bit stir crazy and had already finished the book I brought. We had spent the whole day sleeping, reading and having the occasional pull-up contest. We went to sleep planning to make another attempt for the summit the next day.
I woke at 2AM and could hear some wind but it wasn't too bad (compared to the previous day). We ate breakfast, got ready and were out the door by around 3. We climbed up to the base of the cliffs, leaving camp muir far below us. A reddish glow started to appear on the horizon signaling the start of the day (finally) and hopefully some warmth as it was pretty cold out. The sunrise was pretty but we didn't have too much time to enjoy it as we still had to start the technical portion of our route, the Gibraltar Ledges. This route winds its way around a massive rockface (Gibraltar Rock) that splits the Nisqually and Ingraham glaciers. You traverse across a series of ledges (each with large drops below) and then up an "exit ramp" that is pretty much a 65 degree snow/ice slope/wall that is around 500-700' long. There were four of us so we had 2 rope teams. I took a number of pictures as I enjoyed the views of the mountains, glacier, and St Helens smoking away off in the distance. The "exit ramp" was interesting as it was a "No Fall Situation." I was leading in my rope team and was climbing with no protection to stop a fall. A fall would’ve resulted in me sliding down a rather steep slope out onto the glacier and probably into a crevasse. At this point I was using both my mountaineering axe and one of my technical ice tools which I had brought just for this occasion. Slowly we made our way to the top finding ourselves at the top of the "exit ramp" at around 1:00. It had taken us almost 10 hours to reach that point. All that remained was an easy walk up the summit cone but realizing that we had 1400' of vertical to go and that the ferocious winds would make every minute of it miserable we decided to head back to Muir. The winds had been pretty bad all day but it wasn't until this point that we were fully exposed to them. The weather was looking iffy as well. Kris disappeared over the edge of what appeared to be a cliff onto a "snow bridge" which led down to the Ingraham Flats and back to camp. The smell of rotten eggs was pretty strong as it wafted out of a few crevasses in the snow (we were on an active volcano after all). One of our party almost fell in one of these falling in up to his armpits. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful. We made our way to the top of Cadaver Gap and downclimbed a very steep headwall back to camp. We arrived at Camp Muir at 3, having left almost 12 hours earlier. A warm motel room was enough of a goal to get us all packed up and heading down only 30minutes later. I was warm most of the trip but still a warm room where I didn't have to deal with melting snow or wearing the majority of my clothes definitely appealed to me. We arrived at the car and were all very happy to finally feel warmth after 4 days and 3 nights of being out in the cold.
With 2 days to spare until we had to fly out the group split up with two staying in Seattle and Kris and I heading to Vancouver to check out the mountains in BC (which were absolutely amazing). It was an amazing trip and I already can't wait to return and try a harder route. A great first step in the sport of mountaineering/alpine climbing. That's all for now although I'm sure you'll be hearing about more trips in the near future!
Pics can be found at: Direct Link to Pics or if that doesn't work try going to Roundabout Link to Pics and go to the Rainier folder (2nd pg)
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