Victory on Rainier

More pictures here!

This post is old news, but I still wanted to document it here that on Tuesday, July 10th, I summited Mount Rainier!

The ascent was more stunning and beautiful than I expected. When we started from Camp Muir at 2 am, the night sky was perfectly clear and illuminated by a half a moon and thousands of stars. On one end of the horizon, I could see the tail end of a lightening storm. On the other end, the hints of sunrise. My first glimpse of the dramatic blue, white and green glaciers against this backdrop of night sky brought tears to my eyes. Majestic.

When I said, "This is so beautiful!," Michael yelled back, "Focus on what you're doing!" Oh brother. At least he let me drink water. 

We trudged along at a slow and steady pace and reached the summit in about 6 hours. Although I had a few waves of nausea near the top, the effects of the altitude weren't bad. I attribute that to the full day of rest we had had at Camp Muir.

On the steep parts on the way up - where we were practically scrambling on all fours - I kept thinking about how scary those parts were going to be on the way down. And they were. I would use my ice axe for stability, but the top of the snow was already slushy, and the risk of slipping either off the side of the earth or down into the center of the earth seemed very real.

The mountain felt so much like living, breathing, volatile organism. One of the crevasses we walked around on the way up had expanded about 10 feet during the day, so that on the way back, we had to take a new path over the top. We could see where our old path now led directly into the crevasse. On another part of the trail, a small avalanche had completely covered our original tracks. We scampered over it as quickly as we could in case there was more ice coming down.

When it was all finished and I was back home in my warm bed, I felt so grateful. Grateful that we had such perfect weather conditions. Grateful that none of us got altitude sickness. Grateful that my body could do this for me and enable me to have this experience. Grateful for the magnificence of God's creations. Grateful for my sometimes mean but helpful friends, Melissa and Michael, who guided me through months of training and then to the top. Grateful for the prayers and encouragement of friends and family. Grateful that everything came together so that this little dream could become a reality.

This is not the end of my mountaineering adventures. I am joining the Seattle Mountaineers club this winter, and my new long-term goal is to summit all the Cascade range volcanoes. On August 25th, we did Mt. Adams, the second tallest peak in Washington. Two down! I am especially eager to get back down to Mt. Shasta.

If you are interested in the Rainier chronology of events, here is how it all broke down:

WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN DAY 1
Woke up at 4 am
Drove down to Rainier
Got the Ranger station at 7 am to buy permits
All the permits were gone for that night
Bought permits for the next night
Drove back home to Seattle
Slept
Ate
Slept

DAY 1
Woke up at 3 am
Drove down to Rainier
Hike up to Camp Muir, base camp
Arrived around 2 pm and set up camp
Fell asleep early
Awoke in the middle of the night to a hail and a lightening storm
(I have never felt so close to lightening ever in my life! It was awesome.)

DAY 2
Woke up at 8 am
Rested
Hung out around Muir and chatted up the other hikers
Flirted with the rangers
Ate a lot
Drank a lot
Peed a lot (so much that my hands starting cracking from all the hand sanitizer I used)
Played cards
Read
Prepared our rope

DAY 3
Woke up at 1 a.m.
Roped up
Started for the summit at 2 a.m.
Arrived at the summit around 8:30 a.m.
Pooped in the crater at the summit, visible to all
Got back down to Camp Muir around 1pm
Took naps
Packed up camp and started back down around 3 pm
Back down to the car at Paradise by 7 pm
Dinner
Home in Seattle by 11pm!

*I recognize that "to summit" is not technically a verb, but I really like it, so I use it anyway.