Summit day on rainier
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| The hut at camp muir |
I had put all the things I needed that morning inside my sleeping bag to keep it warm thru the night. And even thou it was super hot when we got to sleep, it got pretty cold during the night. Trying to sleep at 6pm was not an easy task too.
We ended up leaving camp at 1 am. I could see the sea of headlights going up the cathedral gap. This reminded me of our Mont Blanc summit climb.
The first part was getting up to Ingraham glacier thru Cadaver gap. It was dark but lots of stars in the sky. I don't mind climbing in the dark eventhou it kinda gives you a false sense of security.
Roping up all 4 of us walked thru ingraham glacier and headed up toward Disappointment Cleaver. It was mixed snow and rock. Because of the warm weather, some of the crevasses opened up and one of them had a ladder so climber walked pass them. It was awesome.
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| there's even bathroom |
I was focusing so much on my step, I could barely pay attention to the sunrise which is quite a shame. I looked back to John and man, it was pretty. But unfortunately, it wasn't a great place to stop and take pictures. I was kicking my self now for not having it accessible at all time.
Moving on the emmons glacier was awesome. We gaining some altitude and had to jump another crevasse again .
It was nerve wrecking for me because I didn't want to trip on my crampon or did a face plant at Rainier. It would be funny but probably could be fatal.
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| guide service hut and their tents |
We made a good time until the last 700 feet then it felt like it was just dragged on and on and on.
Then there it was.. The crater.. It was big. But danngit!! The true summit was on the other side. The thought of climbing up some more wasn't really appealing to anyone.
We were all tired but we did it anyway.. I meant, might as well , we were there already. We rested a little bit before packing up and headed to the true summit.
It was windy as hell at the summit!! We took some pictures and was just ready to head back.
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| me and brandon at Mt.Rainier Summit photo by brandonriza.com |
We got back to disappointment clever met up with Dan again, it was a crazy idea for him to wait for us up that high. But he did. He found an area that's a bit sheltered from the wind And he said he enjoyed the sunrise view.
We started going down DC. It was super slushy. I hated it. I don't like when my feet is sliding when the slope is steep, especially when there's a drop off at the end of the slope. The guys moved down pretty quickly while I moved in snail pace, grunting and cursing ( sometimes loudly). Br and I stayed roped in for this section just in case I slipped. He was being patient.
I really really just wanted to get out of DC.
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| Me and john taking a rest break at Emmons Glacier . photo by Brandonriza.com |
All 4 of us roped up for glacier again and man, it felt good to be back in the ingraham glacier as crazy as it sounded while looking at huge dark hole of crevasses all over the glacier. We moved really fast pass the glacier and back to the Cadaver gap.
Then the camp came to view. We could see our 2 tents from the top of the gap.
15 mins after that we got back to the tent. All tired but happy to get back alive..
Then I started worrying about the dogs again. It has been a debacle trying to wrangle where they should be during out climb but particularly for Rainier. There are no dog boarding in Ashford and the closest one being 1 hr away. I wasn't pleased with the place and wasn't feeling great about living them there. They came back to us okay but we are thinking to re-adjust the plan if the next place wasn't great. Kali and neutron are really important of us and this trip made us realized how much we hated dropping them off in kennel.
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| john and dan with our tents in view |
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