Mt. Rainier - the icon of Pacific Northwest.
Having climbed Mt. Washington in NH about 7 times, including 2 times at night purposely, Mt. Adams, and going through 30 days of brutal “Soviet climbing school” during cold winter months in Kazakhstan, I was ready to do something big. Well, big and “local”, on a home turf. I was dreaming about Mt. Rainier for a long time now, and after I saw it from the summit of Mt. Adams I could not stop thinking about it, especially having all of my new mountaineering skills.
While sitting at work, I googled Mt. Rainier, and my mind was made right there. Now I needed a partner. I asked my friend Vitalii, who went to climbing school in Kazakhstan with me, but he was in college and was unsure if he could make it. One of my coworkers - Tiki - had a close friend whom he grew up with. “The guy is crazy about the outdoors’, he always told me about him. His name is Eudore and he moved to Pacific Northwest a few years back to be able to do outdoors. Tiki was telling me about Eudore a lot and he was telling Eudore about me a lot too. “You guys should meet, you will be a great team”.
I did not know anyone else with mountaineering knowledge or skills, sadly. Logically, I asked Tiki to get me in touch with Eudore so we can plan this thing out. He did. After about 10 min texting each other, without ever seeing each other or even speaking on the phone, we decided to do it. The schedule was tight due to the late summer time which has conditions far from ideal for climbing Mt. Rainier but it is still considered “the season”, just the end of it. We picked a date a week away and I ran to my boss asking to approve a few extra days off for me. He did. Yay! To the adventure!
I ran back upstairs and sat back on the couch from which I was texting Eudore - it is the only spot at my work where you can get decent phone reception. I went online and booked tickets. As soon as I did, Eudore texted me saying that he reserved a climbing permit for us on selected days and I told him that I have an airplane ticket already We were good to go. The rest of the day at work went by fast and I don't remember how my 12 miles bicycle commute ride went. I am not sure I was stopping at red lights, to be honest. I could not wait to get home and start prepping my gear. Trying to bring only the absolute essentials I was carefully crafting my climbing kit and ended up, I think, bringing every piece of climbing gear I owned anyway.
Taxy. JFK. Airplane. And in no time I was looking for Eudore everywhere at the airport’s pick-up area in Washington State with my big and heavy duffel on my shoulders. Finally, I saw him approaching me. Quick hello with a firm handshake and classic “Nice to meet you” and we dove right into climbing mode. I landed late - around none and we were supposed to start climbing that same day. But we also needed to stop by REI to pick up some food, fuel not allowed on the plane, and some Gatorade. Next time remind me to bring Gatorade in powder. Way lighter this way. I wish they also made powdered beer. After we grabbed everything we needed for the climb we drove off toward the Beast of the Northeast - Mt. Rainier. It was an hour-and-a-half drive and we had plenty of time to talk and get to know each other.
What I like about mountaineering is that the strongest bond between people is created this way. When you go through hardships with someone, it bonds you like nothing else. And the bigger the hardship, the stronger the bond is. Military people can relate. Especially war veterans. Do something really hard and dangerous together and you will make the best friends of your life. Try it. I saw a small documentary somewhere about these two top world mountaineers (I can’t recall their names or the name of the documentary at the moment) who live in different countries. They see each other twice a year when they climb something big and they know each other so well, I would call it “feel each other” that they can just look into each other’s eyes and know exactly what is going on. They were on this one serious climb and a multi-day storm rolled it. They could not keep climbing and had to wait it out. After a few days, the storm has not subsided and they were running low on food and supplies. One of the said “I looked at my partner and read it in his eyes - we are going down, climb is over”. No need to even talk. This is the kind of bond I am talking about.
We arrived at the parking lot at Mt. Rainier National Park at 5:30 pm and began to get ready making the last adjustment. It was a super late start; ideally, I would have to get a hotel, get some sleep, and start the climb the following day. But being on a tight schedule dictated its own rules. I was also very tired because I had a long day. I had to wake up at 1 am to get ready and get to the airport for my 6 am flight. At the time we took our first steps toward the mountain I was already up for 12 hours and did 6 hours flight.
Mt. Rainier National Park is beautiful and the mountain looks huge. It was hard to believe that we will be standing on top of it. Our plan was to reach Muir Camp (10,000 ft/3048 m) on day 1 and summit early in the morning on day two. However. The late start did not allow us to reach Muir camp. We were pushing as hard as we could but it was just too late in the day. We only had two days worth of food and our climb was at risk of failure. We reached a snow field somewhere halfway to Muir Camp, sat down, and discussed our options. One of the was to abort the climb right now. The other one was to keep climbing but it would be really hard to do without food. It was another option but I did not think it was possible at all. One of us had to go (run) back down to the car and grab more food. I knew that I am in no condition to do it because I had to come back up the same day. Eudore said he would do it. Luckily, he was in excellent physical shape for that. He went down, grabbed food, and came back up. He also brought some Gatorade (heavy). Later, he told me that he had to run down, not walk, to make it back on time. He saved our climb!!! We assessed the terrain and picked a spot for our camp for tonight. It was late, like 10 pm, dak and we (me for sure. Eudore - I donk think so) were tired. In no rush, knowing that we have an extra day to climb, we set up our tents, ate some hot food, and went to sleep. We made sure to get plenty of sleep and woke up late - around 7 am.
It was a cool morning with a view of the mountain right from my tent. Also, skiers came by flying down the mountain. Just imagine that someone made it all the way to Muir Camp by 7 am and now skiing back down. They probably left the parking lot at midnight.
Moving slowly, we enjoyed our breakfast, did our teeth brushing and face washing usual business, and began packing our camping gear. Day 2 was a relatively short and easy day because we had only a few hours of climbing left to do before we would reach Muir camp where we would set up our camp again and from where we would push for the summit in one continuous shot. Muir cam is where all of the climbers set up tents, rest, recover, and enjoy each other’s company. Some of the more advanced hikers/trackers go up to Muir camp and spend some time there. Getting to Muir camp requires mountaineering boots and crampons. I would also use a helmet because things tend to roll downhill and can hit you in the head. There are small crevasses on the way up. Nothing crazy but gotta be careful.
It was a lot of people at Muir camp and it was hard to find a spot for our tents. We had to dig out some snow to make a spot for our camp. We had some big crevasses right near our tents and going to the bathroom at night might send you falling down into one. We also had a lovely rockfall happening not too far from us from one of the rock formations. Far enough to be “safe” but close enough so we could see and hear it. They also have a bathroom at Muir camp with is great.
We spent day 2 getting our gear ready, melting snow to have drinking water on the summit push day, and going over some technical climbing skills that are life-saving when/if one of us falls into one of those big crevasses. Remember, we just met and we needed to know each other's level of climbing before we go out there, where our lives will depend on each other and where we, literally, will be tight together by a rope. After everything was done and prepped, we tried to get some rest. Sun was beating down on that part of Muir camp where our tents were and it was really hot. So hot that I could not sleep. The tent becomes this little sauna with no airflow so we had our flaps open to have some air movement. We also had to leave at midnight to have plenty of time to reach the summit safely, considering that we were climbing late in the season which means it was warm conditions and dangerous due to soft snow, avalanche danger, and constant rock falls.
Our plan was to leave at midnight but someone said it is better to leave earlier, thus we decided to leave at 10 pm on day two. That meant no sleep, again. I tried to get some sleep but it was just too hot and I was anxious before the big day. We got up at 9 pm and did our last gear checks, putting on our harnesses, crampons, and helmets. We checked and rechecked our rope and knots. I got out my headlamp and it won't turn on. My heart stopped for a moment. I remembered that same thing was happening with it when I was in Kazakhstan. Once or twice it would not turn on but then it would turn on. This time it did it again and not working headlamp means I cant climb which means Eudore cant climb either because you have to climb with a partner. I did not have a spare one. Luckily, it did turn on after 10 minutes of me trying to figure it out. Our climb was almost ruined and saved once more. We roped in and went for it.
There were 5 teams leaving at the same time as us. There were 3 dudes from Colorado, who live at elevation and are acclimatized to elevation, a team of Russian-speaking climbers. It was like 7 of them and they broke into two smaller teams roping in 3 and 4 people. And I remember another two teams of two people each. We moved out and were 4rt, I believe. Climbing is done slowly to preserve your energy because reaching the summing is only halfway. You still need to come back down. As we were walking, we got stuck behind the Russian crew. It felt like we are walking slowly but they were walking even slower so we had to pass them. We ended up passing up when we sat down for a break but we had to pass them again when we caught up with them and they were walking just too slow for us to be stuck behind them. We came across many sketchy sections of the route and got lost a few times but nothing major. Walking on the ledge of bottomless crevasses is always fun but jumping over them especially. There are also structures called seracs which are made of snow and ice and can be the size of a 50-story building and only god knows how many thousands of tons of snow and ice are in there and what happens to a climber when he gets wiped away but a falling serac. So, we had seracs too. Rainier has lots of them and they are big. Really big. Sun began to rise when we were about two hours from the summit. We were ahead of everyone and were just passing each other with this one team of two people - a couple, I think.
The higher we were getting, the lower we were walking due to a lack of oxygen. Hypoxia is a real thing and makes you feel nauseous, dizzy, and tired, breathing becomes fast and your heart rate goes up. Being nauseous makes it impossible to eat and if you force yourself to eat you will vomit. This is your body’s way to prioritize your blood flow which is needed for more vital functions of perfusion and no blood can be spared for nutrient transport. At extreme levels of hypoxia, you can become altered and do stupid things like undress because you think you are hot and become hypothermic and die or walk off the ledge. It happens on a really high elevation, though. There are exemptions, however.
We reached the summit around 7 am but it was not it. Mt. Rainier has a crater and one side of it is higher than the other. This means that if you want to truly summit, you have to do more walking. Again, if not for Eudore, I would be satisfied with the lower side of the crater but he made me keep walking and we reached the true summit. We sat down to rest and opened our celebratory beer which we gladly drank. We just sat there, on top, enjoying the view and watching how other teams joined us. We spent there an hour and a half before we went back down.
Going down is more dangerous, plus the sun melted snow and it become a smoothie. Now it was really dangerous. Avalange was asking to happen, rock falls were erupting everywhere and those seracs… dear god, I could feel how they can't wait to crash us. For these reasons, we were almost running down before the snow melted even more and all those dangers got even higher. At some point, we sat down for a break. After about 5 minutes I heard a loud crashing sound. We jumped and looked back and saw one of the smaller seracs falling. It was far and it was only the size of a two-story building and all of it fell into a crevasse the size of a football field. A big gaping abyss engulfed it all. We also saw that all seracs were towering right above us and it was a bad place to rest. We moved out immediately.
After many hours of walking down, we reached our camp. I was exhausted. People who were in the camp were congratulating us and Eudore was happy and talking to everyone. I could not even say a word because I was so tired. Right before we reached the camp he stopped to chat with some climbers. Keep in mind that we are attached by the rope and have to stay attached. If he stops, I also have to stop because we can't allow any slack in the rope. So this guy is chatting with these people meanwhile I am dying from exhaustion and can't wait to get to my tent and collapse.
We took an hour or so to rest and have some food at Muir camp. Boots came off to let our feet rest and dry. We were rocking some crocks. We ate, melted some snow to have enough water to make it down, and off we went. Nothing eventful was happening on the way down except that I poorly secured the crampons on my backpack and they made a hole in it.
Once we reached “civilization” - Mt. Rainier National Park, it was still a long way to go to the parking lot. There were lots of tourists there. Just regular people who came there to enjoy time with their families. And they all had to congratulate us on the successful summit or ask us if we just climbed the mountain. And Eudore was happily giving each and every one of them answers meanwhile I could not say a word from exhaustion. Now I knew exactly how Vitalii felt on our Mt. Adams climb.
Finally, we made it to the car, but we still had a two-hour drive ahead of us to get home. I thought it was my last glimpse of Mt. Rainier, but I was wrong. I saw it many more times when I was on the plane taking off at the airport. I landed in JFK in the evening, got home, and went straight to sleep after taking a shower, of course. The next day, I had to work, and I decided to ride my bicycle. It is a 12 miles ride with the Manhattan Bridge climb. I made it, but when I came to work, I realized that I couldn’t walk ok so I had to go out sick. My boss was understanding and was surprised that I did not call out sick in the first place “You climbed a god damned mountain, after all”. I had blister healing for another two weeks after that. Too bad mountaineering boots can’t be broken in. The only way is to break in your feet by climbing A LOT!!!