Mt Rainier Summit Attempt
Sept 4-6, 2000

NOTE - There are some photos mingled throughout the story, but you can view all of them in various resolutions HERE.

Don't ask me where we got the crazy idea to attempt a climb on Mt. Rainier. Mt. Rainier is 14,400 feet and considered the hardest endurance climb in the lower 48. I guess it all started a couple years ago when my sister and her husband moved to the Seattle area. My brother-in-law Mike became intrigued by Mt. Rainier. He suggested to me one time that we should try to climb it. At first I thought he was kidding, but then I came to find out that there is an excellent guide service called RMI that will attempt to take just about anyone that thinks they are up for it to the top of Rainier and back down again. It would require some mountain climbing training and rental of some serious gear, but it could be done. "Sure" I said. "Why not?"

Years went by. We kept saying "one of these days". Then a new friend of mine told me she was going to climb Rainier in June of this year. It got me thinking about it. Maybe it was time to go for it. I talked to Mike about it and we decided it was. Turned out, however, that by March of this year, the soonest we could sign up for a summit attempt would be Sept 5-6, with climbing school sometime before that, preferably the 4th. So we signed up and committed ourselves to changing our diets, changing or workout routines and doing everything we possibly could to get in shape. Ya right.

The paperwork that comes back from RMI stresses over and over again in big bold letters, "YOU CANNOT OVER TRAIN FOR THIS CLIMB". "The hardest endurance climb in the lower 48" they said. Recommended workout regimen? Stadium stairs with a 40 pound backpack. Nice. The summer blew by, I didn't do any of it, I was too busy. Between a toe injury, knee injury, busy-ness and lazy-ness....I didn't train enough. I almost backed out of the climb at the last minute, in fact, because I knew I wasn't in good enough shape. My friend that climbed it in June said it was "the hardest thing she ever did in her life". Suffice it to say, I was really nervous. In the end I decided to just go, try to do my best and if I only made it halfway, then fine.

Mike and I decided to go down to Rainier a few days early to camp out in an attempt to get a little acclimated to the altitude. The highest we could camp out was about 4000 feet or so. I think about the only thing we got acclimated to, sorta, was the rain. It rained non-stop. It was hard to stay dry. Ah well, the joys of the Pacific Northwest.

On Monday we showed up at the Paradise parking area at 9:00am for climbing school. My impression beforehand was that we would make a short hike to some nearby snowfield and learn how to hike in the snow safely and efficiently. What it turned out to be was both a school for those things, as well as a filtering process to weed out the weaklings. They hiked us up a pretty steep hill of say 1200 vertical feet, with our backpacks on, and at a VERY fast pace. They told us point blank, the reason for this was to determine if we were up for the climb or not. I was doubting myself again by the end of the hike. However once we started doing the school on the snowfield, I felt fine.

The school was actually pretty fun. I learned a lot about how to walk on the snow. I never realized, for example, how well Vibram soles can grip in the snow if they're scuffed properly. We spent most of the day up on the snowfield walking around, sliding down, strapping on crampons and doing it again. We learned how to rope together into teams and keep just the right amount of slack in the line as we hiked around on the snow. It's a cardinal rule, you want the rope in front of you to be in a straight line, no more slack than that, but not taught either. If it becomes taught, they call that "water-skiing". What this means is that you have to keep the exact same pace as the guy in front of you. Go too fast and you'll have a pile of slack line. Go too slow and you'll be water-skiing off the poor guy in front of you. We practiced all afternoon. We slid face first down the snowfield and learned how to stop ourselves with our ice axe. They call this "self-arrest". It was kinda fun. It wasn't too hard. What a disillusioning way to prepare for the climb as I think back on it. We had no idea what we were in store for. We were all complaining that they made our climbing school hike too hard and would impact our endurance in the days that followed. But I'm here to tell you, they were right to try to filter out the weaklings. This climbing school hike was NOTHING compared to what was in store for us, little did we know.

At the end of the day we raced down the hill in boots that are WAY uncomfortable to walk in, especially when traveling downhill. They are like ski boots almost. Perfectly flat and stiff soles with plastic housings. They're designed for attaching crampons and to hold their shape. They work great in the snow. They absolutely SUCK on a dirt trail. I went a bit slower than the pack because I was worried about my right knee. It held up ok though. Out of the 24 people in our group (not including guides) 2 people flunked climbing school and were dropped out of the climb.

When Mike and I got back to our wet-n-rainy camp site, we talked about the day. We were both a bit nervous about the climb. I had blisters on my feet already from the 5 miles of hiking we had to do for the climbing school. We were both a bit worried about the weather too. They assured us that the cloud layer was at 8000 feet, which would mean that most of the climb would be up in the sunshine. We would soon find out I guess.

The next morning we got up really early. We had to be ready to hike at 9:00am sharp. We threw all our wet car-camping gear into the car and drove up to the Paradise parking area at 5400 ft. That's where all the "fun" would soon begin. We got there early enough that we could get our packs finally ready and get dressed right there. The cloud layer was about even with Paradise..and it kept going back and forth between foggy and sunny, teasing us. But eventually, the clouds rose above us and stayed there the rest of the day.

By the time my pack was completely ready, it must have easily weighed 50 pounds. Between all the gear and extra clothing we would need. It was fully extended up as big as it would go. I took out everything that wasn't essential, including my video camera. In retrospect, I wish I woulda taken my video camera. Oh well, next time. Ya.."as if".

Finally, we hit the trail. They told us we would not hike as fast today as we did to climbing school, but it still felt pretty quick to me. My pack was a lot heavier now. But I just kept chugging along. It wasn't that bad.

All my fears about not having worked out enough were slowly evaporating away. I might actually be able to do this after all! (or so I thought at the time) At one point it almost seemed like we were going to rise above the clouds. Blue sky started hinting through the fog. We saw this amazing view of Mt. Rainier above us, with clouds all around it and around us, the mountain top just barely visible through the mist. It was heavenly. Unfortunately RMI would not let us slow down or stop to take any pictures under any circumstances except for designated rest stops, so I can't show you what it looked like. Just trust me when I say that it was AMAZING.

Every hour we took a break. RMI allows exactly 10 minutes per break. No more, no less. You have just enough time to pull off your pack, put a jacket on to stay warm, eat a powerbar, drink some water, put on some sun block and before you're half done with that the guide is telling you to get your pack back on and get going. The breaks were never long enough. But the short breaks kept us from getting cold I suppose. At the time it just felt like they were looking for the weaklings.

After the first rest stop we hit a big huge snowfield. This big snowfield goes straight up for like 4000 vertical feet, all the way to the Muir base camp. The whole rest of the way on this day would be straight up this snowfield. No switchbacks. Just straight up. Just to give you a rough idea of what 4000 vertical feet is, your average ski resort is 2000 vertical feet and the bigger ones are 3000 ft. The largest vertical ski resort in the US is Jackson hole with 4000 vertical feet. So imagine hiking straight up the side of Jackson Hole, from bottom to top, on a snowfield that is actually that long, with 50 pound packs on. Long snowfield.

We used our vibram-sole-scuffing technique to get a grip and it worked surprisingly well. We were engulfed in clouds so we could never see more than a hundred feet or so. At no time did I have any idea how much further we had togo. It seemed like the clouds were rising along with us. I kept thinking we'd hike up out of the clouds, but the clouds were rising. Not a good sign for imminent weather. We just kept climbing and climbing, taking 10 minute breaks once per hour.

After about 5 hours or so, we could see camp Muir above us at the top of the snowfield. Camp muir is at 10,000 ft. This day, we had essentially climbed 4600 vertical feet with 50 pound packs on slick, slippery snow. To be honest, I didn't feel all that bad. We had used our rest-steps and pressure breathing techniques to conserve energy and it worked quite well. I had been worried that the hike to Muir would be very difficult for me, but it turned out to not be all that bad and at this point I was feeling pretty darn confident about tomorrow's summit attempt. I was actually doing ok, despite my lack of preparation for this event. Or so I thought at the time.

When we got to Muir, Mike didn't feel good. I think the altitude was getting to him already a little bit. Plus we were all nervous. The guides sat us down and gave us a big speech about how much more difficult it would be tomorrow up on the glaciers. The climb would be much steeper, the air thinner, and temperature colder. It would be much harder. They told us it was "ok" if we decided to stop at Muir. No big deal. I started losing confidence again. I thought to myself, if the weather is no good I could just as easily stay at Muir and forego the summit attempt for another time. The weather was not looking good. It was snowing a little bit and the clouds had definitely risen quite high. It was very possible that we would awaken to a crappy day on Mt. Rainier. I didn't really have any desire to attempt to climb up the hard part of the mountain in crappy weather where we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. Not only that, but I REALLY had no desire to be bagged and tagged on the side of the mountain when I found I couldn't make it all the way.

What is "bagged and tagged" you ask? Basically, they take 3 rest stops before reaching the summit (the summit is the 4th stop). Each rest stop is about 1.5 hours apart, or a little more than that. At each rest stop you have exactly 10 minutes to do all the things I was talking about earlier. Except you have one more important mental task to deal with. You have to decide if you're going to be able to make it to the next rest stop. Each section gets progressively harder. You cannot, under any circumstances other than dire emergency, stop between designated rest stops. The reality is that the rest stops are located in the only "safe" locations to stop. So there is no stopping or turning back allowed anywhere other than the designated stop locations. So, when you're at a stop, you have to COMMIT to making it to the next one. If you think you can't make it, then you need to stop now. If enough people decide to stop along with you, then they'll rope you together in a team with a guide and send you back down. But if you're the only guy, then they'll "bag you" there. They'll seal you up in a sleeping bag and pin you to the snow and leave you there for pickup on the way back down. Part of the self-evaluation process at each stop includes determining whether you have enough stamina to make it not only to the next stop, but also back down to camp muir. NOBODY wants to be bagged and tagged. I really didn't want that. That would be miserable. I would rather just stay at Muir than try to go for the summit, get halfway up and get bagged. So, at camp muir, Mike and I had all these thoughts racing through our mind, mixed with nervousness and tiredness and high altitudness and too-many-powerbars-in-one-day-ness. Mike and I kinda sorta verbally agreed in our nervousness that if the weather sucked in the morning, we'd just stay at Muir.

But we were too busy to think much more about it to be honest. We had about 2 hours to eat, get ready, find a bunk and be all ready so that in the morning we would waste no time getting started. By 7:00pm we were all laid down to attempt to sleep in the shack RMI provided us.

A word about "the shack". What a poor excuse for someplace to sleep. I did not sleep a wink. Not one single minute. I just tossed and turned all night. Partly, I think, was due to nervousness about the climb-to-come. And partly was because it was horribly uncomfortable. They had 21 of us crammed into this little plywood shack. The only pad I had was a 1 cm thick piece of foam that felt like nothing. I was so uncomfortable that I could barely stand laying there awake, let alone being able to sleep. My knees were killing me too and I couldn't seem to lay in a way to relieve pressure from them. People were getting up all night to go to the bathroom. Some lucky people were snoring. It was a long, long night.

At 1:30am they came and awakened us, or I should say, told us to get up, because most of us were already awake. To me, it was a welcome change to be able to get up, rather than lay there awake, tossing and turning in nervousness. Finally, we could get on with it! We had exactly one hour to eat, dress, pack the final things into our packs and get harnessed up and tied into a rope team. There was not a second to lose. I took a quick look outside at the weather. Turns out that it was crystal clear out, with guzzillions of stars shining brightly. Not too cold either, considering it was 1:30 in the morning at 10,000 ft in the Pacific NW. I wasn't sure if I was glad or sad. It meant I had to actually go! No wimping out now. Nonetheless, it was exciting! People running around with headlamps on, everyone trying to slam down oatmeal and water. Me trying to decide if I should wear my thermal underwear under my fleece pants or not. People complaining about how lousy they slept and pointing at the snorers. The adrenaline was flowing and it was pretty exciting actually. I felt sorta like a hard core mountain climber, getting up before the crack of dawn and so forth and running around getting ready in the dark, with an amazing sky full of stars overhead.

2:30am came, it was time to climb!

I was roped into the 2nd team of 5. Every rope team had a guide on the front and 4 mere-mortals behind him. Our rope team was the 2nd team and I was immediately behind the guide. It also turned out that our guide was the jack rabbit of the bunch. It seemed like he was always sprinting forward faster than I really wanted to go, then slamming into the rear of the next team and forcing us to stop. We would stop-go-fast-stop-go-fast-stop-go-fast most of the morning in fact. If we coulda just gone a hair slower it would have been much easier for me to execute the rest-step properly. Did I mention the "rest-step"? That is this special way of walking that they taught us in climbing school where you step forward, but you lock the rear leg and let the weight sit on the rear leg as long as possible. Then you kinda hold that position for half a second before changing your weight to the front leg and rocking forward to make that the new rear leg with the weight on it. This step allowed each leg to get a good rest on every other step. In theory, it works great. Unfortunately it seemed like the guide was always going just a hair faster than I really wanted to go. In fact, I had trouble properly executing the rest-step at that pace. When I could slow down just a bit, I could do it great and I felt like I could go forever. But sooner or later I'd be water-skiing on his line and need to power forward to get some slack in there. It was really hard to rest-step at his pace.

Nonetheless, it was really exciting, the whole thing. It was pitch black outside. I couldn't see the mountain or anything. I could only see a line of headlamps bobbing up and down above me on the glacier and an even longer line of bopping headlamps below. I couldn't see the glacier itself, just the bobbing headlamps. We wove around, stepped over small crevasses, concentrated on keeping our rope with the right amount of slack and keeping the same pace as the guide. We concentrated on finding the right places to plant our boot crampons. It was pretty cool actually. So far, not too difficult. For the most part we were just traversing across a big snowfield towards a rock outcropping ( we couldn't actually see the rock outcropping in the dark but we knew it was there). See the photo below which I took later the next day, that is the snowfield we were crossing. It's a lot bigger than it looks though. We weren't even going uphill really. It was all pretty easy. I felt good! Eventually we started climbing up the one and only section of rock trail for the remainder of the climb, on that rock outcropping. Its called "something-er-other-chimney(remind me to look it up later). It got a lot steeper. They slowed down a little bit and we made it without much trouble. On the other side was our first designated rest stop on an area called Ingram flats, which is on the Ingram glacier.

An hour and a half had already gone by. It went by pretty fast. I mean, it seemed like and hour and a half, but we were mentally occupied with all the technical aspects: Making sure the rope had the right amount of slack, placing our boots in the snow to get a good grip with the crampons, aiming our headlamps in the right place, and occasionally looking around in the darkness at all the other headlamps hanging in dark space and thinking "how totally cool!".

At that 11,500 foot rest stop, it was still totally dark other than the sky full of stars. It was VERY cold. I didn't realize how cold it was until we stopped. When we were hiking it was kinda like snow skiing on a cold day. No big deal. It didn't take long to get a little chilly at the rest stop though. All the rope teams started piling into the stop area behind us. There was definitely a buzz going on. The very first thing you're instructed to do is grab your big puffy down jacket which you have packed conveniently at the top of your pack and throw it on. These are big huge Antarctica-sized down jackets with big huge hoods. Their only purpose on this trip is to keep you warm when you're stopped. You're supposed to put them on immediately when you stop in order to retain your body heat. We all followed these instructions mindlessly, scrambling to get the jackets on, pulling up the hoods, drinking some water and eating something. They've told us over and over again how important it is to eat and drink something at EVERY SINGLE stop, even if we don't feel like it. The guides reminded us again to eat and drink and sit down on our packs to rest the legs. We scrambled to do it because we knew we'd only get 10 minutes to do it. No more, no less.

I looked around for Mike, who was on another rope team. I could see them a few yards away, scrambling to eat, drink and stay warm. So far I was feeling pretty good. I might actually make it, or so I thought at the time. The guide took a minute to ask everyone in our group how we felt. Could we commit to the next section? He explained to us that the next section was WAY WAY harder than the one we just did. "This is where it starts to get difficult" he explained to us. That nervousness started to set in again in the pit of my stomach. But I was still feeling pretty good. I felt confident. I might actually do this after all! Nobody from our team dropped out.

Mike came over to me and tapped me on the shoulder. He did not look happy. His eyes were bloodshot, he had this pained expression on his face, I've never seen him look so miserable. He was experiencing severe stomach pains in his inner-most gut. Basically, he was having altitude sickness. His guide had helped him come to the conclusion that he should probably stop here. He had come to tell me. I felt bad for him. I know Mike. He did not want to stop. It was written all over his face that he was both in physical agony from sickness as well as mental agony about not being able to continue. He told me good luck and within another minute our guide was telling us to mount up and get moving back into the darkness of the Ingram glacier.

It turns out that after we left Mike started puking his guts out. I think he made the right decision to stop. It also turned out that 4 other people besides Mike stopped at that first rest stop as well. So they all roped together and hiked back down to Muir. Nobody got bagged! They did at least try to make an outing out of it. They stopped to watch the sunrise, among other things. I think Mike felt a little embarrassed about vomiting all over the snow in front of everyone, but an older gentleman confided with him that he had pooped his pants with the runs while attempting to fart, then Mike didn't feel quite so bad! (sorry if that's more info than you really wanted to know, but maybe you get an idea of what we were into at this point). The real bummer for Mike was that he was feeling good in terms of legs and effort required to climb. He was just sick from the thinner air. There was nothing he could do about it. Bummer.

Meanwhile, our rope team made our way up the Ingram headwall. They had told us that this was where it would start to get difficult, but I was totally unprepared for how difficult it actually became. For some reason I had envisioned a long, endless but reasonably sloped set of switch backs, well defined in the snow, that we would just plod our way to the top on. I couldn't have been further from the truth. I don't know what I was thinking. The route went nearly straight up the glacier. Occasionally it went at a slight angle, but I think the angle was more to facilitate the sideways-stepping "French Technique" then to make the slope easier. It seemed like they were taking the most direct route possible, right up the side of the glacier. Placement of crampons became ultra important to get a grip. It was still dark. All I could see were headlamps bobbing up and down above and below me in space; and a steep, steep snowy slope rising directly below my feet in the light of the headlamp.

Rather unfortunately, it had snowed a bit earlier that night. There were many places that the lead guide was basically forging a route through the snow. I was about 6 rope positions behind him. By the time I got to his footsteps in the snow, they were cremated and washed out powdery holes. It was REALLY hard to get a footing in some places. I just sunk up to my knees and wallowed around in the slippery, steep powder. On the firm sections I could get a better grip. Some places the packed route was too narrow to do a proper herringbone step or French side step. That meant pointing my toes straight up the hill, which put immense amounts of torque on my calf muscles, being as steep as it was. Man, this was getting hard. The hardest part about it was keeping pace with the guide who was moving forward relentlessly. He never lost a step. A few times I wanted to just stop for 2 breathes. 2 seconds is all I needed. Long enough to rest my calf muscles for 2 beats and take a couple extra breathes. But the minute I tried to hesitate, the guide would be climbing forward pulling on my rope steadfastedly like the lead dog of a dog sled team. I was clearly NOT ALLOWED to stop or slow down for any reason. Oh he was very positive about it, to be sure. He'd yell back what a great job we were all doing. But make no mistake about it, his job was to keep us moving at a good solid pace. No exceptions. The climbers behind me on my rope water-skied behind me a couple times. I was instructed to keep moving forward when they did. No slackers allowed....period.

It was hard to remember to pressure breathe sometimes. I was too busy trying to focus on foot placement in the snow, rope slack issues, ice axe usage, aiming my headlamp, etc.. But eventually I got into a steady rhythm of the heavy in and out "pressure breathing". Pressure breathing is where you take a deep breathe and then when you exhale you forcefully push the air out of your lungs. Supposedly, at higher altitudes there isn't enough pressure for the air to completely escape your lungs without this technique. If you don't force it out, you won't draw in enough air on the next intake and consequently over time you won't get enough oxygen into your bloodstream. This eventually leads to sickness, lactic acid buildup in the muscles and things like that, not to mention just plain shortness of breathe as you flounder around in the steep powder snow trying to keep up with the guide.

So they told us to pressure breathe constantly, even when we don't feel winded or when we're stopped. Even at the lower elevations, its important to keep pressure breathing in order to stay ahead of the game. So I pressure breathed as non-stop as I possibly good. My throat got dry and a little hoarse from all the pressure breathing I was doing. My stomach muscles even hurt a little from all the quick, forceful diaphragm pushing I was doing to get the air out of my lungs on every breathe. And occasionally I'd catch myself not doing it as I was mentally caught up in the technical aspects of the climb. But more or less, I was doing it most of the time and so far, no altitude sickness seemed to be effecting me. Boy was I getting tired though. My calf muscles were burning and I was sure tired of pressure breathing.

About halfway up the Ingram headwall it started to get just a hint lighter out. JUST A HINT. I could just barely make out a shadow in the distance that was the cloud layer below us and on the horizon was a long, thin, dark orange line that went right along the edge of the horizon. The sun was going to come up! Man..what a cool site it was. I could not stop to take pictures, and even if I could, it wasn't light enough anyway. There is no way to fully appreciate the spectacle without being there to witness it. It felt sorta like it must feel like to be in a space shuttle at sunrise or something. This long thin orange line on the horizon and nothing but stars and blackness all around, headlamps still bobbing up and down in space above and below me.

As it grew a little lighter, the orange line expanded into a lighter colored banner. Mt Rainier all of a sudden appeared out of nowhere as the meager light began to display the shadows of rock outcroppings and glacial headwalls above us. The bobbing headlamps started to appear as climbing shadows, silhouetted against either the dark shadowy mountain above me, or against the cloud layer below me that was gradually beginning to look more and more like an ocean at sunrise as the orange light faintly cast its light across it. AMAZING visuals I have to tell you. For a few minutes I forgot about how hard the climb was. We were climbing a friggin' big mountain and the sun was about to rise. The whole feeling is impossible to describe or capture on film. There is no way that anyone could get a sense of this without doing it as we were. Totally amazing.

At some point I realized that it was light enough to turn off my headlamp. The sun still wasn't up over the cloud horizon, but the shadows of the mountain were starting to look more and more like well defined mountain features. Crevasses were appearing out of nowhere. HUGE crevasses. Man, I didn't realize how big they could be. I could see how much further we had to go, which was a bit discouraging to be honest. This mountain seemed mighty huge all of a sudden. Above me I could see the lead guide forging his way. Now that I could see what he was doing, more than merely his bobbing headlamp, it was interesting to watch him do his thing. He'd pick the line, set his footsteps, try to create nice defined places for those of us following him to put our feet into. He had a bunch of little flags sticking up out of his backpack. Occasionally he pulled one out and stuck it in the snow to mark the route. My general impression was that they change the specifics of the route constantly according to the changing glacier conditions. As crevasses move, pull apart and snow bridges melt away, they define variations to the route as needed. It sorta seemed like they are pretty much always doing this route modification on every climb. They are constantly paying attention to the mountain and planning for the next climb as they work their way up.

In many places we stepped or jumped across crevasses. In one place there was a ladder bridging the 6-7 foot gap that we had to walk across. In a few places there were still snow bridges. Some of the bigger crevasses we had to walk around. This meant, in many cases that we had to go way out of our way, sometimes climbing back DOWN the mountain to get around a big crevasse. This meant losing vertical which we would have to turn around and recover again after we rounded the end of the crevasse. Oh well.

Eventually the sun actually popped over the edge of the cloud horizon and we were blasted with sunlight. I really wanted to photograph this, but we were not allowed to slow down or stop for any reason at all, period, so I had to just enjoy it and remember it. The mountain took on a completely new look as did the cloud layer. Off in the distance we could see the tops of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood sitting there like islands of the pacific ocean, with the morning sunlight blasting their eastern slopes. They seemed so close, but I knew they were many miles away. Mt. Hood is in Oregon, for example. I'm not sure how far that actually is. Maybe 100 miles? At one point I looked down to the north and thought I saw a big body of water. I couldn't figure out what it was because it sorta looked like the Puget sound, but the sound waswest, not north. I asked my guide what body of water it was. He took a look and explained to me that it wasn't a body of water. What I was looking at way down there was a body of clouds! That was a layer of clouds, that just sorta looked like a body of water in the early morning light. Wow. We were getting way up there in the sky!

Not long after sunrise we finally reached our 2nd rest stop at 12,500 feet after about 1.75 hours of non-stop climbing. There was nothing to indicate a stop location. The guides just stopped in the middle of the glacier and said "we stop here". I guess this was supposedly a safe place to stop without having to worry about rock and ice falls from above. We all scrambled to get our packs off, get our big puffy jackets on, eat, drink and now we were a bit worried about getting on some sun block and getting out the glacier sunglasses. The sun wasn't too bright yet, but it would be soon and we would have another 1.5+ hour climb to the next stop location.

I was feeling really tired by this point. The guide asked us how we felt. I told him my legs were toast and I was really tired. I think maybe I was half hoping that he would make the decision for me to stop. I didn't wanna make that decision, but I was half considering it. They explained to us that the next section was even harder than the one we had just done. I listened to the guide more or less help another guy in our team decide to stop as I slowly tried to chew on a powerbar and drink some water. It was getting harder to eat. I just didn't feel like eating. I didn't really feel winded per say, once I sat down. I didn't feel sick to my stomach. I didn't have any headaches either. None of the high altitude sickness symptoms. I just felt totally whipped. Maybe not 100% whipped, but I was beginning to seriously doubt if I would have enough to make it to the next stop and even more doubt that I would be able to go from that stop to the summit. I most definitely did not want to get bagged. 4 climbers from the whole group decided to stop here. They were all getting roped together to go back down. This was probably my last chance to avoid getting bagged. Man, I was really tired. And the next section was supposed to be even "harder"?!?!?

I waited until my guide was done convincing the other guy to call it quits and then as he asked the rest of us how we felt, I told him I was feeling really whipped. However he didn't seem to give in to me as easily as he did to the other guy. While it seemed like he sorta talked the other guy into quitting and commended him for making that hard decision, with me he sorta shrugged his shoulders and gave me the definite impression and attitude that I was strong enough to go. "Quit your crying and drink some water" was the underlying tone I caught from him, but in a nice supportive way of course. There was no backing out. He was not going to make this decision for me. I was going to have to clearly make the decision myself to either go forward or stay behind. He obviously wasn't too worried about me making it. So I decided to go for another section. I couldn't wimp out now, could I. Wimping out was not an option. So after the designated 10 minutes we started climbing again.

After about 15 minutes I began to question my decision. Even if I did make it to the next stop, which at this point was not an option; I was increasingly aware of the fact that I might not be able to make the final section to the summit. This section was even harder than the last. Not only because of thinner air, but also because the slope was even steeper than the last! This is where we were doing some serious trailblazing up through powder too. In some places I couldn't believe how steep it was. My legs were about ready to explode from the work of hauling my overweight butt and pack up the side of the mountain, straight up the side of this glacier. We had traversed away from the Ingram glacier over to the next glacier over called (fill in later). Apparently the top of the Ingram glacier is way too dangerous and falling apart this time of year. I most definitely water-skied behind my guide a couple times, trying desperately to keep up with his pace and barely being able to. The climber behind me was doing the same to me. The guide just kept pulling forward. No slowing down or stopping allowed!

This 1.5 hour stretch seemed the longest of all. It was so hard. The whole time I was mentally asking myself if I should stop at the next rest break. I watched the lead guide above me, forging a route through the powder and climbing the mountain upwards one step at a time. This was HARD WORK. I couldn't help but ask myself how the hell these guys do this all the time? "WHY" the hell would they want to do this all the time!?!? Some of them do the really big mountains like McKinley. The summit of McKinley is nearly 10,000 feet higher than we were right now! I can't even begin to comprehend how hard that would be. And these guides LIVE for it!

In the sunlight we were able to see other small groups attempting to reach the summit on basically the same schedule as us. I looked at them and wondered why those people had gotten interested enough in mountain climbing to want to go out and buy equipment and do it on a regular basis. Why would anyone want to do this over and over again? I was (and still am) having a hard time seeing the fun in it. I wasn't smiling much, if at all. True, the sunrise experience had been truly amazing, but now, 2 hours later..the sunrise was over and it was just plain hard climbing in thin air, pressure breathing exaggeratedly and attempting to rest-step at the fast pace set by the guides.

The sun worked its way up into the sky. At around 9:00am or so we pulled into the 13,500 foot rest stop. This was the final stop before the summit. I was beat. The guide asked us how we felt. I felt fine in terms of altitude symptoms, but just beat tired. I told him I might stop. He said I had only a minute to decide. I sure didn't want to get bagged there. But, that last section was so hard. My friend that did Rainier in June told me that the final 1000 feet to the summit was the hardest part for her, she could barely put one leg in front of the other. I was thinking about all that in the one solitary minute I had to consider my decision. The guide was no help either way. He wasn't giving me ANY feedback eitherway. I guess they're not supposed to. It was going to be my decision. Not only do you have to consider whether you can make it all the way, but you have to make sure you'll be able to get back down the mountain as well, which is no easy feat in and of itself. And I was a bit worried about how my knee would cope on the way down. The guide explained to us that some other guy had recently pushed to the summit and then they had to practically carry him down the mountain. Uggh, I didn't wanna duplicate that guy. 30 more seconds to decide..

Are you wondering about whether I made it or not? It certainly was not an easy decision let me tell you. To come all this way and stop at the last rest stop, 1000 vertical feet short of the summit. Yet, I was worried about being a hazard on the team at this point. I was trying to eat and drink to consider the decision, but I just didn't feel like eating anything. I thought about Mike back in Muir. We could always come back next year and try again together. I did get to see the sunrise. I did make it to 13,500 feet, which is still higher than any other place in Washington state and most of the other cascade range volcanoes. Then again, I'd have to be bagged. I sure didn't want to be bagged.

Ah hell, I couldn't wimp out now. Not this close to the summit. I would just have to find a way to dig down deep and move my legs up the mountain. I told the guide I was gonna keep going. He expressed to me with a smile that he thought I was strong enough to make it up and back down from there. He said that if he didn't observe that I was strong enough he would have definitely talked me into stopping. But he felt I was a strong climber and able to do it. I think he might have been confusing sheer will and determination with supposed strength, but that's cool.. I was committed now. I tried to suck down a PowerGel. Two actually.

Nobody else quit at this rest stop either. Apparently, the vast majority of people that quit, do it at the first two rest stops. Once they get to the third, they're committed to reaching the summit. After our 10 minutes of rest we set off on the final 1000 vertical foot climb to the summit. In fact, the final stretch did prove to be slightly easier than the previous two. It was still steep in places, but I think the guide was also just a bit more lenient about the pace. He let us slow down just a hair. This helped TREMENDOUSLY. This stretch was only about one hour. It was the shortest stretch of all in terms of time.

At about 10:00am, give or take, we reached the crater rim. We plopped down in the snow on the leeward side of the mountain, out of the wind. It was cold up there, but the radiant sun helped a lot as long as we were out of the wind. Technically speaking, the very top of the mountain was around the other side of the crater. They would not let any of us go over there because it was already late in the morning and we would only have about 30 minutes to hang out there before starting back down. That was not enough time for anyone to walk to the very top and sign the log book. No problemo here. Even if they did allow us to do that, I wouldn't have gone. I was just sitting there like a lump on my backpack, trying to breathe as deeply as possible. I didn't feel like eating, but forced myself to. I walked up to the edge of the crater and took a couple pictures with my disposable camera.

I wobbled my way back to my backpack and sat there like a lump some more. The guides were chit chatting and eating. This was like a pleasure cruise to them I think. I think I must have been the weakest climber to actually make it. I certainly seemed like the most wiped out. At least that was my impression.

To be perfectly honest, the view from up there wasn't a whole lot different than the view from down below. Just an endless sea of clouds with Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and Mt. Saint Helens sticking up through like islands in the sea. It didn't really feel like we were as high up as I knew we were. The snow slope we were sitting on just sorta fell away down below us, so we couldn't see very far down the mountain. And we could see the cloud layer beyond that going off into the distance. All ideas of distance weredistorted. It sorta felt like I was sitting on a beach looking at the ocean. Just look at the picture from the top. Though it doesn't look like it, that cloud layer is about 5000 vertical feet below the summit.

I didn't really feel typical altitude sickness symptoms, but I kept pressure breathing even as we satthere. I felt a little light headed, but this could have been from no sleep and the hard climb as much as anything. I definitely didn't feel like eating anything. But I did.

After about 30 minutes the guides told us it was time to head back down. We would go pretty fast apparently. We took off down the mountain. I couldn't believe how fast we were descending. A couple times in the softer snow I couldn't get a good footing at this pace. I fell and tumbled. The guide was water-skiing me down the hill. I had to ask him several times to slow down. The people behind me were having the same trouble. I guess there was some danger involved in not getting down quick because it was late in the day already, the snow was getting soft and we needed to get out of the danger zones before rocks and ice started falling around us.

Suffice it to say, that it was no easy task getting down. In some ways I was more winded because we were moving faster. I still had to pressure breath. I got a bit nauseated when we started moving down. I think the fast pounding down the mountain, combined with altitude and the powerbar I had to eat at the summit were all catching up to me. I was finally feeling the effects of altitude. It would not go away until we got all the way back down to 11,500 several hours later. Meanwhile, I was having a lot of trouble getting a good footing in the soft snow. The sun had turned it all to mush. My leg muscles were all wobbly too, which didn't help and our guide in particular wanted to practically sprint down the mountain. The people behind me kept asking me to slow down, but I couldn't slow down because the guide was dragging me down too. As we descended, it got hotter and hotter in the sun. We couldn't stop to take off any layers of clothing except at the designated stops, of which there were only two going down. I was sweating bullets. The snow was getting all clogged up and sticking to the bottoms of our crampons. When it did our feet had absolutely no traction whatsoever. And it seemed to get clogged about every 5 steps or so. Which meant that every 3-5 steps we had to bang the side of our boots with our ice axe to attempt to dislodge the clogged snow. That in itself is no big deal except that you have do it without losing a step or else the guide would pull you over onto your face down the hill. I couldn't wait to get to Muir man!

When we finally got to the Ingram Flats rest stop, the location of the first rest stop that morning, they let us hang out there for a good 30 minutes. All of a sudden they were in no rush. Apparently, all this rushing to get down the mountain was basically to get past the rock and ice fall zones, of which there were many. We saw a few and one big falling boulder actually came within 50 feet of one of the climbers in our group. I can fully understand and appreciate their concern for getting us down off the mountain. But now that we were out of that zone and an easy downward climb away from Muir, they were much more relaxed about the pace and allowed us to sit on Ingram flats and enjoy the view of Little Tacoma and the sea of clouds behind it.

There was another RMI group doing the 5-day expedition. They were camping in tents on Ingram flats. The guides from that group came over the talked with us for a while. We saw another non-RMI group headed up the mountain. They were apparently going to try to get to the top in time for sunset. They must be nuts.

I was finally feeling better now that we were down to 11,500 feet. I ate a bagel. I needed it. I drank the rest of my water. I shed a layer. It was hot. We finished the downward trek into Muir. Seemed like we were all dragging our feet the last few hundred yards. A few people sitting at Muir clapped their hands in our honor. The guide explained to us that we should make sure to get our certificates for reaching the summit when we got back to Paradise. "We get certificates?". Cool, I earned it. Total time from Muir to the summit and back again was right around 12 hours.

At Muir we had exactly one hour or less to pack up the rest of our stuff which we had left at Muir and hit the trail back down to Paradise. I was limping around Muir trying to get ready. I'd have given anything to just stay there that night. The lack of sleep was definitely catching up to me now if it hadn't been before. I was the last one ready to go. Once we got cruising down the big snowfield below Muir, I was ok though. My pack was back to full weight. The hard part was that we had to pretty much "slide" our way back down the snowfield in our boots. This was kinda tricky, especially with a 45 pound pack on. But 3 hours later we crawled into the Paradise parking lot, unloaded our stuff, changed into dry clothes, obtained my certificate and called it a done deal.

I told Mike when I got to Muir that this was the hardest thing I've ever done and I had absolutely no intention of ever doing it again. But now that I've had a week or so to recover I thinks its probably just ONE OF THE HARDEST things I've ever done, not necessarily the very hardest. Pretty damn hard though! But I made it. Maybe next time (if there is a next time) I'll make sure to be in better shape and it won't be quite so rigorous for me. This time, I was not in shape, I hardly prepared. Next time I will prepare a lot more for sure. Also, if there is a next time, I don't think I will do it with RMI. I would rather get a private guide. Maybe sleep in tents a little further up the mountain. I think this would make the summit attempt a little more bearable as well as help to acclimate to the altitude a little more. We would hopefully not have to keep such a rigorous pace the whole time. RMI does a really good job at taking 24 totally inexperienced mountain climbers to the to of Mt. Rainier every single day. In order to do that, they have to stick to strict rules about rest breaks, climbing pace, etc.. I think a private guide would be able to be just a little bit more flexible about such things and that would make the whole experience a bit less stressful and more enjoyable. Nonetheless, the RMI folks are very encouraging, very positive, friendly and given the job they have to do, very pleasant. I would still recommend RMI to anyone doing this for their first time.

One more thing. Go in July. According to one guide I talked to, nearly 100% of all climbers make it to the top in July. Out of our group of 24, only 12 made it all the way. I don't know if it's the weather, the snow conditions, the route or what, but for some reason it's a little harder in spring and fall. Supposedly the route is a little easier in July because the snowpack is still firm. Or maybe they just go at a slighter easier pace? Maybe the sun comes up earlier in the morning? Who knows. Just go in July..if you go at all.

If you read this and decide to go, good luck!

Cheers

Steve Schow

Summitted Mt Rainier Sept 6th, 2000 at 10:00am.