An Ascent of Mount Rainier 4,393 metres, Washington State
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An Ascent of Mount Rainier 4,393 metres, Washington State |
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The author, note the sunburnt nose... |
Paradise
Camp
Muir
Mt Rainier
Summit
North
tbd
46°48.00'
46°51.40'
East
tbd
121°44.00'
121°45.30'
Altitude
1,645
metres
3,072
metres
4,393
metres
Paradise to Camp
Muir
Camp Muir to
Summit (return)
Camp
Muir to Paradise
Ascent
1,411
metres
1,321
metres
-1,411
metres
Time
4- 7 hours
6 - 9 hours (4
hours)
3 hours
Distance
7
kilometres
4
kilometres
7
kilometres
Mount Rainier 4,393 metres, is located in Washington State, USA just 100 miles from Seattle, the home of Microsoft, Starbucks and Boeing. Mount Rainier is the second highest mountain in the lower 48 US states, Mount Whitney in California, the highest, is only 84 feet higher. Like nearby Mount St Helens, it too is a volcano... The route described is the Ingraham Direct, graded Grade II - III US, considered by the author to be equivalent to French AD inf. The author's style of climbing this route is solo 'off-the-sofa', which is not recommended unless you are an experienced mountaineer. For aspirant mountaineers, Rainier Mountaineering Inc offers guideing and courses. The author climbed the route on 6th September 2000. The photographs on this page, with their clear blue skies, show Mount Rainier in unseasonably good weather. Be warned, the weather is not always this good. Recommended Map - Stanley Maps Mt. Rainier Climbing Guide |
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Mount Rainier and the Nisqually Glacier I first saw Mount Rainier in early August 2000 when I visited Seattle on a business trip. As a mountaineer, a 4,000 metre peak so nearby was an opportunity not to be missed after my next trip to Seattle, planned at the end of August 2000. I bought a guidebook, Mount Rainier, A Climbing Guide, by Mike Gauthier to help my planning. Back in Sydney, between the two visits, I had to find all my mountaineering gear, still in my garage after 3 years in storage. I packed it all into my suitcase ready for the trip back to Seattle. I took my rucksack as hand luggage. Most mountaineers learn not to put rucksacks through airport luggage systems. Ice axes, not surprisingly, have to carried in hold luggage! After the seminar in Seattle, I hired a car, and left Seattle for Mount Rainier. On the way I stopped to buy supplies at a supermarket. I had not anticipated the difficulty I would encounter as a stranger in the US. Not one brand name was recognisable to me, I had to look through every shelf just to find a passable meal. All I could find, suitable for mountaineering, were noodles and tinned fish. What I should have done, was to go to REI, a huge outdoors megastore in Seattle and buy specialist food there. For fuel I needed methylated spirits, but had to settle for something called 'rubbing alcohol', not the same thing, but I hoped it would work. The supermarkets do not sell any outdoor supplies. The Mount Rainier National Park lies around 100 miles and an hour and a half from Seattle. There is no public transport. Inside the National Park there exists a monopolistic bureaucracy that stifles free enterprise. Just outside the park are a number of useful gear supply shops and inexpensive hotels which, in retrospect, would probably be a better base than the Paradise Inn where I was heading. Passing the toll gates at the Nisqually gate, I handed my $10 entrance fee to the park ranger in the nice uniform. I passed Longmuir, a National Park operated 'village like' collection of log cabins. 20 minutes later I arrived at Paradise which consists of, well spaced out:
The Paradise Inn is a large log cabin style hotel run for tourists by the park service. It's a weird place. The rooms appear to have been numbered in random order. The food in the hotel is very sad, I guess prepared by park rangers who have just rotated off entrance fee collection duty. The shop is nearly useless. It does not sell a single item of any use to a mountaineer, or even a self respecting tourist. My room did not have a toilet - and the shared toilets were so small, it was hardly possible to get into the cubicle. Finally, the hotel staff, have only the vaguest idea that there is a significant mountain just outside! They cannot help with any information at all, or even where to get more information. I tested my novel 'rubbing alcohol' stove fuel in the car park by boiling a pint of water. It was a little slow, but good enough. The skies were clear and if the weather held, my chances now looked good. Next morning, I checked out of the Paradise Inn, and went to the Visitor Centre to get my climbing permit. The US operates a third world style 'permit for everything' approach. 9am saw me waiting outside for the centre to open. The park rangers let me in at 9am, way too late for a mountaineer. I then had to fill in lots of forms with strange questions, (e.g. - What colour is your sleeping bag?!!). Then they told me it took weeks to get approval for a solo climb. I was amazed. Eventually the ranger spoke to her boss, who gave me a 'hook up' permit which meant that once at Camp Muir, I had to find others to climb with. The permit process itself involves putting $15 cash into an envelope which is then placed into some sort of metal totem pole. The rangers and I each get to keep a bit of the envelope. I can imagine the French in Chamonix (Le centre du mondaile de alpinism) laughing their heads off at this nonsense. I started the long plod to Camp Muir at around 9:30am. The path begins at the visitor centre. There are a myriad of little nature trails paved in asphalt, and clumsily repaired by park rangers, who I guess, have finished their tour of duty making lumpy porridge in the Paradise Inn kitchen. - You need to follow the Skyline Trail and then the Pebble Creek Trail. Pebble Creek marks the beginning of the mountain path to Camp Muir. |
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Melting snow inside Camp Muir
Climbing to the summit - it looks like a queue...
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The path to Camp Muir climbs 1,411 metres to 3,072 metres over a snowfield with some mediocre, not very challenging, crevasses. You can buy topographic maps showing (inaccurately) the route from REI in Seattle or some of the outdoor stores outside the park. It took me about 6 hours to get there. I arrived to clouds and snow, and at first I thought that my chances of success tomorrow were low. Nevertheless, I spent the afternoon melting snow to get drinking water and eating noodles in preparation for tomorrow. I awoke at the mountaineering witching hour of midnight. Outside was a completely clear sky, full of stars, a mountaineer's dream, except that there was no moon to light the snow. Sod it, but I was going to climb Rainier! I teamed up with Keith and Suzanne and we set off at 1:30am. We started strongly, but inevitably lost our way in the dark. We waited for a long torch-lit crocodile of Rainier Mountaineering Inc. guides and clients to pass us, and then we started up again. RMI have permanent bamboo wands placed on the route, but they are not easy to find in the dark. We continued up, and were surprised to find that the route climbed up and down and traversed wildly, rather than taking a steady ascent. The late season crevasses were making the route circuitous and difficult to follow. Moving slowly, I unroped from Keith and Suzanne to let them go ahead as they were stronger. I continued on my own. I was the slowest mountaineer on the mountain, but still, in my view (and I was right!) moving strongly enough to succeed. The weather was perfect, the snow was perfect, why turn back because you're a bit slow? The route's convex nature made it difficult to see the way ahead. My altimeter was not too much help as it told me 200 metres too (obviously) low that I was at the top. Above me, I could see the long line of mountaineers heading for the top. I would catch up on the technical bits, and be left behind on the plod sections. Towards the summit I had some symptoms of AMS - ataxia - unsteady gait, drowsiness, and nausea. However, I had no headache! This positive sign kept me going. With such good conditions I could not stop. I just had to make sure I did not fall over, vomit or fall asleep! The last 100 meters of ascent were achieved with pure willpower, but soon, I stood with everyone else on the crater rim. It was 10:45 am, early enough for a safe descent. Mount Rainier is a volcano, and this was the first one I had climbed. From here could be seen Mount St Helens, and to the south, almost one behind the other, Mount Adams, Mount Hood, in Oregon, and Mount Jefferson. |
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Resting just below the summit
Descending from the summit |
Many of the RMI group were exploring the crater, but I just took a summit photo, drank some water, ate a little food and headed down. Descending a 4,390 metre peak is more dangerous than ascending because in sunlight the melting snow makes the snow bridges over the crevasses more dangerous. It also causes sunburn for the unprepared. I had a some factor 15 lip balm, but failed to apply it. However, on the plus side, going down, the air gets thicker, it's now light so you can see your way, it obviously takes less energy, and if you have strong knees, it is easier. In the lower dangerous sections I waited to tie onto another party for safety as I crossed the more broken regions of the glacier. The effect of the clear sky and strong sun burnt me so badly could feel my skin ooze. Above Ingraham Flats we descended a now unstable glacier system which pelted us with rocks. I put my helmet on for safety at this point. I wanted to get into the shade, and rested by a cliff at the Ingraham Flats. Lower down, crossing the Cowlitz Glacier, above Camp Muir, more rock fall from the unstable volcanic rock cliffs above, reminded me how dangerous this climb could be. Reaching Camp Muir at 3:30pm, I was glad to get in the shade and rest. My nose and cheeks were a real mess, I had no mirror, but could feel a great mass of scab tissue forming. I was wondering if I would need a skin graft, but nobody screamed when they saw me. I had seen other mountaineers worse, and eventually it took just two weeks to heal. I decided to wait for the next day to descend as I was too tired to continue. I cooked more noodles and tinned fish and ate my remaining Mars bars. I drank loads of tea. Still, I had no headache, although I took an aspirin as a precaution against one developing during the night. At 1 am I was awakened by the next batch of mountaineers going out into the night. I'm sure that they were successful too. One of them had climbed the 'seven summits'. Later that morning, I headed down. I put a T-shirt over my head to stay out of the sun, which amused and puzzled people coming up. I spoke to some interesting people, and I always warned them about the sun. Another group of RMI people came past. About 40 of them in crocodile formation about one stride apart, wearing identical hired boots. I can't imagine wearing hired mountaineering boots. The blisters must be horrendous. My own boots are about 15 years old, and fit perfectly (now!). I was glad when I reached the tree line, with its cooler air, pine scent, which I miss, as I now live in Australia, streams and flowers. Soon I was on the nature trail and back into the car park. The park rangers like you to sign back in, so I did, and then had a shower. I needed it! I had no towel, so I dried off in the sun around the back of the Paradise Visitor Centre, standing on a steel sewer inspection hatch for warmth from the metal! Soon I was respectably dressed, driving my car back to Seattle. I was just another tourist, except for my sun burn war wound. However, I had succeeded. It was my first 4,000 metre climb for 3 years, I was the last to the summit, I had burnt myself, but I had succeeded. After I got back to work, one of the partners said to me, after hearing the story, - 'well, at least you got a result!' Two weeks later, I watched the Olympic Triathlon back home in Sydney. I cheered on the last competitor, who was the happiest of the lot - and I thought back to arriving last at the summit of Mount Rainier - success is what counts, not simply being first. Thanks to Tom and Jim Goldrup for their useful suggestions for improvements to this page. |
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Mount Adams and Mount Hood - you can also see Mount Jefferson just to the right of Mount Hood |
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