We are never promised a successful summit, mother nature always has the last say. We were coming into this weekend after a snowfall and weren't sure if the conditions would play nice. They did. The various adventurers on Mount Rainier this weekend were treated with beautiful, warm weather and a well maintained route. Although most of the crowd visits Paradise for a nice afternoon visit, there were quite a few skiers, hikers, and splitboarders at Camp Muir (for a Thursday).
We left from Paradise at 1:15 pm on Thursday 6/17 and were already in complete snow as the trail hadn't melted enough. After passing the crowds, we reached the upper Nisqually Glacier and continued up to Camp Muir, our first night's basecamp permit. It took us 5 1/2 hours to climb about 4800 ft elevation and 5.1 miles according to the GPS, but I think it was actually less mileage.
The next day we left for our second basecamp, Ingraham Flats. The trail across the Cowlitz Glacier was in good shape, with a few crevasses opening up just south of the trail about 100 ft. The Cathedral Gap was part rock, part snow, and part ice, so we were very glad to be wearing our crampons. After taking in a breathtaking view of Little Tahoma Peak (previously the tallest peak in WA, and was the actual Mt Tahoma/ Rainier), we continued up to Ingraham Flats. The GPS tracked 0.75 miles and about 1000 ft elevation gain, which we did in 1 1/5 hours. We made some friends to those who had summited that morning and were breaking down camp, shared some stories, and then took over their flat (and melting) camps.
We left camp for the summit around midnight. One of my favorite parts of peak bagging is climbing in the middle of the silent, desolate, cold night. Our headlamps cut through the black as we continued up the Disappointment Cleaver, which was still mostly compact snow which made for a much easier climb. We reached the top of the Cleaver and took a break, as we played leapfrog with a guided-group. There was still zero light besides that from the moon and stars until about 4 am. We continued up past the summit crater and up to the summit at about 4:30 am... 4 1/2 hours and about 3300 ft elevation gain. The summit was beautiful as we caught the sunrise. The summit was cold as the wind gusted past us, nearly pushing us over. This marks 3 for 3 Rainier summit attempts, and I'm always grateful for weather, route, and company.
There were a lot of crevasses and snow bridges that we walked right past and in a few weeks I imagine they'll cause problems. The guides were bringing up ladders in preparation of creating a new route and/or bridging the ladder across a crevasse.
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