(Mt Rainier, Disapointment Cleaver, May 16, 1992) Thursday Evening, arriving at the park. The weather has been good for about a week, but the ranger says it will cloud up Sunday afternoon and rain Monday. If things go well, that should be plenty of time for us to make it to the summit. Mt Rainier stands dramatically by itself, rising 8000 ft from the mountains around it. On clear days it looms above Seattle, painted on the sky. Because if it's visibility it draws a lot of people, the vast majority of who climb a few standard routes. These routes themselves are not technically difficult. The difficulty comes from the elevation that must be climbed, starting at 5400 feet and ascending to 14,410. We pull into the campground at around 11 PM. I'm surprised by how many people are here and dismayed by how many seem to be other climbers. Even though we are doing the climb a little early in the season (good for a season with early snow melt) we will have plenty of company. Friday morning, May 16, 1992 Emily and I wake at dawn, 5 am. Emily is impatient to get going but Richard is still asleep and there is no hurry - we have plenty of time to climb to base camp today. We get up around 7, breakfast on some pop-tarts and head up to the parking lot to pack gear. There are plenty of other groups in the parking lot. Some are just going up to camp Muir for the day, some to ski back down. Near us is a noisy group of climbers. Might be a guided group as there is one person who's doing more explaining. They make several reference to Microsoft - perhaps they work there. Emily and my new fetish is the weight of our gear. To satisfy our curiosity we bought at scale, which we have brought along with us. Emily and Richard are carrying 40lbs while I'm carrying 45 lbs. Hmmm... Leaving the parking lot we immediately begin climbing on snow. Emily takes the lead and sets a pace that is an effort for me to keep. I guess that riding to work and back most days has done some good for her. I sure haven't been getting much exercise myself. Soon after leaving the parking lot we pass a climber who's struggling along. He informs us that he's from Illinois and not used to the elevation and his partner, who's up ahead somewhere, is much stronger. The park service is helicoptering in top soil to revegetate the badly trampled meadows. One third of the way to Camp Muir we have to stop and wait while a huge helicopter comes in and drops packets of something near the trail. The ranger then lets us and about 5 other people through to the next check point. Camp Muir, at 10,000 ft, is the traditional base camp for the climb. It can be reached from the parking lot by hiking up the Muir snow field. Snowfields occur where enough snow accumulates that it is around for most or all of the year. But they are not glaciers, don't have crevasses, and are safe to walk on. The Muir snowfield is significant because it is long, has 4000 ft elevation, is easily accessible by car, and remains skiable well after the ski areas close. The upper half of the snow field is a continuous, undulating slope There's a line of steps going up the middle and most of the climbers fall into line, trudging up the slope one after the other. We eat lunch at some rocks where several other groups have stopped. The noisy group from the parking lot is across the way. I look around at the packs that others are carrying. Some are lighter and some are heavier. I wonder who's going to the summit and who's just here for a day hike. I would like to think that the three of us have managed to pack light. Some packs are outrageously large, and their owners seem to be suffering for it. Camp Muir We arrive at Camp Muir by mid-afternoon. There are several weather beaten buildings, one of which supposedly has space for climbers to sleep. We've brought a tent and bivi sacks in case it's full. I count about 40 people near by, 7 of them women. The Microsoft group straggles in - some of them seem to be experienced while others have all rented gear and are struggling with the climbing. We have the option of pushing on to Ingrham flats, another 1000 ft up. I'm in favor of this because we have time and energy to burn today. I'd rather push on now than have to do it tomorrow as part of the summit climb. Richard worries about getting enough sleep tonight so that he will be able to climb tomorrow. But how much sleep are we really going to get by pitching our tent amidst this crowd of people and trying to go to sleep at 4 in the afternoon? From Camp Muir to the summit we will be on glaciers. Glaciers are permanent snow fields where significantly more snow falls each winter than melts each summer. The weight of each year's snow accumulation compresses the snow beneath it until it forms into blue ice. This ice is fluid enough that with its accumulated weight it begins to flow down slope at a slow rate (a couple hundred feet per year). It flows down the mountain until it gets to an elevation where more ice melts each year than new snow accumulates. As the ice flows over uneven ground it may form cracks, which are called crevasses. These can vary from an inch in width to twenty or more feet in width. From the surface they taper down into a deep blue void, 50, 100, 150, or more feet below the surface. In one place, the glacier flowed over what must have been some mound of rock about 20 ft wide and 20 ft high. Above the rock the glacier formed a huge dome, a hundred feet in diameter. As the ice flowed over the rock it stretched and cracked so that the whole dome is cracked down the center. In other places, where the ice flows over a cliff, large chunks up to the size of houses fall off and tumble down (over the course of years), forming what is called an ice fall. The route from camp Muir to Ingraham flats involves a easy traverse of a glacier, crossing a rock ridge, then climbing a couple hundred feet up the Ingraham glacier. To do this we must rope up. This will be my third time on a rope team, and the first time for Emily. Roping up is a complex operation. One harness goes around my waist. Another around my shoulders. I tie the climbing rope into the sit harness and clip it into the chest harness. I take two shorter pieces of rope tie them into the large climbing rope and connect them to my sit harness. I hang several other pieces of gear off my harness, which will be used in the event that someone falls into a crevasse. Despite the complexity we are surprisingly fast. But not fast enough. The Microsoft group has been roping up to and one of their rope teams gets off before us. We follow closely behind them, with the rest of the Microsoft team behind us. Down across the first glacier. This is very safe going. We are on a solid track on low angle snow, with no large crevasses below us. We cross the rock ridge and come out on the Ingraham glacier. Our route climbs along the side of the glacier, parallel to the rock ridge. The slope drops off to our right into large crevasses. The snow is hard and icy. I take care with each step - I do not want to slide down this slope When traveling on a glacier it is inevitable that one will walk near and even cross over crevasses. Many crevasses that are crossed are an inch to a foot wide - too narrow to present any real danger. Others are wider, five, ten, 20 feet across. Often they are bridged by snow that has not yet melted out. If the bridge will hold the weight of a person this is a quick way to the other side of the crevasse. For this reason, glacier travel is often easier in the spring when the crevasses are bridged by good thick snow. Later in the season the bridges melt out and on emust walk around the crevasses. Without any safety precautions, a fall into a crevasse is often fatal. There are several precautions we take to prevent fatal falls. The ice axes we carry can be used to stop a sliding fall down a snow slope (self arrest). We are roped together on the hope that if one person falls and slides uncontroled down a slope, or drops into a crevasse, the others will be able to catch the fall and get the person back out. We have all practiced these techniques, but practice is one thing. On a steep slope above a crevasse it is possible that one person will slip, pull the others off balance, and we will all slide down into the crevasse before being able to self arrest. In exchange for protection from my own mistakes I take on the risk of other peoples mistakes. I would not be here if I did not trust Emily and Richard's skills and attention. Ingraham Flats We climb about 200 ft up the Ingraham glacier and come out on the Ingraham flats - a mostly flat section of the glacier that is free from crevasses. The Microsoft group chooses the lower section of the flats so I head for the upper section where, just a little further on, I see a reasonably flat spot to camp. We have now climbed close to 6000 ft today and I'm afraid that Emily and Richard are going to rebel against the extra 200 ft that I'm leading. Once there we unrope and unpack. The evening is spent mostly melting snow for water. We each need to drink over a gallon per day to prevent de-hydration. But we can't reasonably carry more than two quarts per person. We spend about two hours at the process of melting water to drink, melting water for tomorrow, melting water for chicken noodle soup (half of which gets spilled on the snow), and melting water for dinner (a Lipton pasta dish in a garlic cream sauce which we make with twice the required water). Someone from Microsoft comes over. He suggests an alternate route through the Ingraham icefall. This is more direct and avoids a tricky, exposed section on the standard route (Disappointment Cleaver). Another group comes in and camps near us. They, like the Microsoft group, have climbed this same route up Mt Rainier several times. We do each other the favor of taking a picture of the whole group. The temperature is around 30, but there's a cold wind blowing. To conserve weight I brought the minimum amount of clothing - I have it all on and it is not keeping me warm while sitting around camp. I'm glad to get into my sleeping bag for the night. Emily and I sleep out under the stars in our bivi sacks. Actually, it is a full moon and I can't see more than 20 stars in the sky. But the moonlight on the mountain is fantastic. Sunday, May 17, 1992 I wake several times during the night. At 12:30 the group camped next to us gets up. By 1:15 when I wake again they are gone - I had hoped to watch what route they took, but now can't see any sign of them above us. At 2:30 teams of climbers start streaming through - probably groups camped at camp Muir who got up at midnight for the climb. We plan to get up at 3 and leave by 4. We are far enough up the mountain that we don't have to get such an early start. This will let us do most of our route-finding in daylight. It actually takes until 4:30 before we are ready to pull out of camp. In the cold and the dark the simple task of fishing something out of a coat pocket can seem like a major undertaking. Though it is a struggle, I enjoy the heightened awareness I have of what I'm doing. By the time we leave we seem to be the last people climbing. The Ingraham Glacier Ice Fall I lead out of camp with Emily behind me and Richard in the rear. We are spread out with 50 ft of rope between each of us (the rope is 160 ft long). I start out at a quick walk and manage to keep the pace for all of 40 ft. Then the elevation catches up to me and I'm suddenly very out of breath. I slow to the familiar pace of take a step, take a breath, take a step, take a breath. When the going is easy there is little break between the steps. Even easier and I may switch to two steps per breath. As it gets harder (steeper) I rest between steps. Much harder and I switch to two breaths per step. After a short distance we come to the fork in the route and must decide between the standard route and the alternate, more direct route. Both seem well marked and well traveled. Further, I can see above us people who have take the alternate route successfully. We decide to take the alternate too. The route climbs quickly up a steep snow slope into an ice fall. In the ice fall we weave between large blocks of glacier ice, hop over small crevasses, and alternate between steep climbing and flat amphitheaters. At one place we pass a large ice arch. Looking back I see Emily on the slope below me, Richard coming around a bend, the Ingraham glacier below us, the foot hills around Mt Rainier, the cascade crest in the distance, and the rising sun on the horizon. When we come out the top of the ice fall there is a fork in the routes. One continues up the Ingraham glacier on an unknown route. The other cuts over to the standard route. We choose to return to the standard route because it is more likely to get us to the summit. Richard calculates that we have climbed about 1,000 ft, a bit less than 1/3 of the distance to the summit. I'm feeling good, not at all tired. This will be an easy climb, I don't see what all the fuss is about. From the fork we traverse right and up a steep snow field onto the top end of Disappointment Cleaver. Here, I intentionly leave the tracks and switchback up the slope. The tracks are nice, make footing easier, and generally save energy, but I want to know that I could still climb the mountain without them. We rejoin the standard route and find we've passed several groups. One group ahead of us turns back. As they pass us the team leader comments that the other two are too cold and he is afraid they would not be able to hold a fall. Keeping warm but not hot is important. I work with layers: polypro and rain pants on my legs, polypro, pile, and rain jacket on my top. But changing layers is complicated by the harness worn over the clothing. Down in the ice fall I got too warm and took off the rain coat, moving the chest harness to directly on top of the pile. When we took a break at the top the wind chilled me so I put the rain coat on to stay warm. When it was time to go I couldn't see taking the rain coat off so I kept it on with the chest harness beneath it. If I didn't zip the jacket up all the way I could still clip into the chest harness. Further up the mountain I find I'm too cold, unclip the chest harness, and close up the jacket. I suppose that I could stop and adjust the layers but that takes time - too many stops for small adjustments like that eat time and kill our progress. From the top of the cleaver we begin the final ascent, about 2000 ft up a steep glacier. I can see rope teams ahead of us on the trail which switchbacks up the slope. The summit does not look that far above us. I would have expected the altitude to affect me more but it is not bad at all. I manage the standard climbing pace of step-breath- step-breath, with a short pause between steps. As the slope gets steeper the pause becomes longer but I never really have to switch to two breathes per step, which I expected would be the norm. We are separated by 50 ft on the rope, a distance that we try to maintain so there is no slack in the rope. As the leader I have to set a pace that we can all maintain. It's easy to tell when I'm going too fast - the rope gets taught. I hold the rope in my down hill hand to keep it out of the way and to know when Emily has stopped. When we first started out, every time the rope went taught I would look back to see what was up. Sometimes it's just caught on snow and needs a tug but other times Emily has stopped and a tug would be inappropriate, even dangerous. But it takes too much energy to twist around and look back so now when there is tension I slow or stop until the tension goes away. After the first day on the rope Emily commented on how the pace was slower than she could have done. So now I'm worried about setting too slow of a pace. I fall into a cycle of speeding up until I feel tension, then slowing down, then speeding up again in case I'm not going fast enough. But I realize that this constant testing the pace is preventing me from getting into a rhythm. So, for a while at least, I settle into a comfortable pace that brings no tension on the rope from behind. As we make our way up the slope we come over rises that let me see the next section we will climb. After a couple rises I begin to expect the summit over the next rise. Instead, another rise appears. This will happen several times before getting to the actual summit. From below it didn't look like there was much mountain left to climb, but now that we are into it it is taking a long time and I'm getting tired. I want to stop for a break and check in on Emily and Richard. I would like some shelter from the wind but best I can find is a one foot depression in the snow - hardly any shelter at all. I plant my ice axe, drop my pack and clip it to the axe so it does not slide away. I sit down and begin sliding away as soon as my weight is off my cramppons. Time for a small moment of panic. With out my ice axe I won't be able to stop myself on this slope. I quickly plant one of my feet and stop before sliding four inches. There's a strong wind blowing down the slope, trying to push us back down the mountain. I coil the rope as Emily makes her way up then she coils the rope as Richard makes his way up. The three of us sit there, backs to the chilling wind, trying to drink as much water as possible. The water is cold and hard to drink. Emily drops the cap to her water bottle and it takes off down the mountain. If we were below 6000 ft one of us might have been quick enough to jump up and catch the cap. But up at this elevation we are not moving fast enough to stand a chance so we just sit and watch the cap disappear. Makes me wonder what happened to my water bottle, which I had taken out then lost track of. I find it under the bottom of my pack. I had set it under the top of the pack so it would not roll away. Then I fiddled with the pack to get something else out. In the process the bottle slid down. If I had lifted the pack higher my bottle would have escaped down the mountain. It's hard to keep track of everything. As we rest I close my eyes and soon doze off. Just for a couple seconds. I'm surprised. We've not been stopped for more than a couple minutes. We soon get cold. None of our stops are been very long, five minutes at the max. Pack on and lead out. Step-breath-step-breath-step-breath. Another rise and another ridge up ahead. If it was flat ground I could probably walk the distance I see in five minutes. It will take us 20 minutes at the step-breath pace. The Crater and The Summit Over the next rise and another ridge, stone capped this time. I stop for another rest to check on the crew. Richard's tired but thinks that is the crater rim above. I try to remember how far from the rim to the peak. Though the map is right in my pack I don't want to spend the energy to get it out. I will find out when I get there. As we near the rocks I see people hanging around. So this must be the crater rim. In classic style, 20 ft below the rim I slip and fall to my knees. I get up but then stumble a couple more times. I'm not that tired, really. It is indeed the rim. Some people have found space in the sun, out of the wind. I cross over the rim and drop into the crater. Not much sun here but mostly out of the wind. As I coiled the rope for Emily, who's not yet to the rim, I look around. The crater is about 1/4 mile in diameter, 20 ft deep, and flat across the bottom. The high point is just about opposite us, on the west side of the rim. The north half of the rim is exposed rock while the south half is snow covered. Most people have dropped their packs here, unroped, and walked across the crater. Make sense - there is no where for the snow and ice to flow so it shouldn't form crevasses. We do the same. The summit is not very memorable and I don't have much to write about standing on it. We could see for a ways, but it was fairly hazy and we could see very little of Seattle. I'm pleased that I'm not experiencing any altitude sickness, or very little altitude effects at all. Walking does not seem to be particularly hard. We have the summit to our sel fs for a couple minutes - the others too prefer to rest down low in shelter. Back at our packs we rest briefly. OK, we've made to the top, stood on the very summit. Now I'm ready for a restaurant dinner and a chance to sit back and relax. Instead we will spend the rest of the afternoon climbing down the mountain, all the way that we've come in the past two days. I offer the lead to the others but neither want in. We rope up and head down. Going down is much easier on the heart and lungs and a faster pace can be made. But there is a much greater risk of tripping and falling. I try to be very careful with each step. Now, descending, the rises hide the slope below. What I can see as I hike down is the horizon of the rise 50 or 100 ft down slope, then the lower glaciers 3000 ft below, with an immense void between. There is nothing to counter my fears that after the rise the slope does not drop off a cliff. At these times I feel I'm walking in the sky and a miss step could send me plummeting to earth. At one place we cross a snow bridge where someone has punched a foot hole through to the crevasse below. Through the hole I can see the blue-black void below. Must have been quite a shock for someone. Whump, drop to the hip, foot dangles in air, a gallon of adrenaline is released into the blood stream. THUMP thump THUMP thump goes the heart. I'm careful to go well above the hole. Once we are down the upper slopes we break for a while. I try to eat some more. It has been a challenge to eat anything at all. I lay back, pull my hat over my face to shade myself from the sun and take a short nap. This is a long break, we are here for ten whole minutes. We head back down into the ice fall. The snow is soft and clings to the bottom of my cramppons. On firm snow the cramppons provide complete traction. The soft wet afternoon snow balls up between the spikes and I'm soon walking on two 4 inch thick snow balls. I have to whap them with my ice axe every couple steps to keep the snow out. We enter the first chute in the ice fall. The snowballs I'm walking on make for dicy going. I signal to Emily and hop over a small crevasse and make my way down. Later I learn that Emily fell in the first chute and slipped 8 ft before self arresting. I looked back after she got up but didn't realize she had take a fall. Self arrest really works, for her at least. In the last amphitheater there are two tricky moves. First we must climb down a chute then hop down 2 ft to a ledge, probably crossing a closed crevasse. Below this is an open crevasse. From there we traverse a short slope then hop across another crevasse that is beginning to melt out, though the snow in it would probably hold. These two moves are exactly the distance between each of us on the rope. If one of us falls we are likely to catch the other in an awkward position. We all make it through, but realize that we probably could have handled it better. We are all tired and want to move along - no one would want to stop to set up a belay, especially since we've had very little experience. We really need to plan separate trips to practice these skills. Back at camp I can relax, for a while. All morning I have had to concentrate on what I was doing. Now, I can relax. We rest at our camp for another 15 minutes. We're tired and there is brief talk about staying here for another night. But we all know that we really have plenty of energy to make it out. We finish off the last of our water. No more until we are back at the car. We pack and go, still on rope but without crampons. Soon we are traversing the slope above an ice fall. Again I must focus my full concentration on each step, conscious of where I'm putting my foot, the snow down slope of me, where I'm holding my ice axe, and how I would arrest a fall. At camp Muir we unrope and rest briefly. It's 2:00 pm and we've been going since 4:00 am, and we still have half the mountain to get down. From camp Muir down the snow is soft and people have walked all over leaving deep foot prints. It's difficult walking, sinking in several inches on each step and catching on other's footprints. I try to glissade, but the snow is too soft for this slope. Lower down we find a glissade track left be others, and get a good run in that. Below that another track, then another. Half way down from camp Muir, glissading in the wet snow has lost it's charm. I slog along in the wet snow, now sinking six inches with every step. As hard as this is I'm still able to power along through it. After 12 hours of difficult walking I'm doing pretty well. When I step out onto the pavement of the parking lot I'm impressed by how hard and unyielding it is. Back in Seattle Driving south on the freeway near home I come over a hill and see Mt Rainier painted on the sky. The mountain I see up there and the mountain that I climbed are two different places. One is a Deity visiting the Northwest, the other is details of routes, crevasses, shapes in the ice, and a line of people. The number of people on the route detracts from the experience. That 50 other people climbed the mountain with me makes it hard for me to feel I did something unique and challenging. The guide book says that in 1984 750 parties climbed that route with about 1400 making the summit. Must be two or three times that now days. The picture of us on camped on the glacier shows how beautiful that place was, more beautiful than I remember. Usually it's the other way around. I was probably too pre-occupied with being tired, keeping warm to appreciate where we camped. I'm glad to have the picture to remind me. By far the most interesting part of the trip was climbing through the ice fall. There were interesting contours, beautiful ice shapes, and a winding route to follow. By comparison, the rest of the climb was an uninteresting grunt up a plain snow slope following a boring track. I climbed Mt Rainier because it was a large, challenging mountain. Now I will choose climbs based more on interest, favoring ones that are likely to be empty or have interesting routes. I'm sure too that I will climb Mt Rainier again, on a different route with different people. Perhaps event sleep on the sumit. -Tom Unger