As part of a physical recovery process starting in April 2018, I decided to climb what Seattle-area residents simply call “The Mountain”. Mt Rainier is an active stratovolcano standing 14,411 ft (4,392 m) at its summit, and the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous U.S.
My previous climbing experience was limited to 2 mountains in Africa which, while taller at 14,900+ ft, were much easier (e.g. no glaciers, crevasses, rockfall, or camping at freezing temperatures). I was incredibly lucky on both my training climb up 10,700 ft Mount Baker in July (guided by American Alpine Institute) and the climb up Mt Rainier in August (guided by RMI Expeditions). We had good weather, no incidents, and I was able to summit both.
Day 1: We hiked to the start of Muir Snowfield and inched our way up step-by-step, reaching Camp Muir at 10,200 ft by afternoon. I stayed up to enjoy the sunset and watched the thin crescent moon move slowly behind the shoulder of the mountain. A layer of grey haze from the forest fires in Canada blurred the line of the horizon.
Day 2: We hiked towards the upper mountain to practice traveling over glaciated terrain and marveled at several gaping crevasses that had opened up as the summer wore on. The view up Ingraham Glacier was an education in perspective — from where we stood, the upper mountain was completely hidden from view.
Summit day: We set out at midnight and ascended in the dark, as usual. Our steel crampons scratched and plowed the rock and soil underfoot as we scrambled up Disappointment Cleaver, a stretch of exposed mountainside between two glaciers. We reached the upper mountain (13,000+ ft) just as the sun rose and illuminated the jagged icy terrain stretching endless around us.
The very top of Mt Adams (12,280 ft height) poked out just above the haze in the distance, casting a long shadow on the sky to the west. We crossed narrow ladder-bridges over crevasses that extended downward 100ft. Altitude and exhaustion set in as we made our final push to the summit caldera, and then a twenty-minute walk through a “forest” of strangely-shaped icicles to the highest point, Columbia Crest.
