Mount Rainier Summit, Camp Schurman — Sunday, Jul. 14, 2024

Climbed Rainier via Emmons route with JeremyAnderson8, DaniilMag, and Andrew July 14-15. Epic views and conditions! Different and more challenging than DC route in my opinion. There are no fixed lines or ladders, the guide services do not do any prep on this route. Conditions are pretty good right now. Snow is firm and grippy in the morning even though snow level is above 14k'. Snow quickly gets soft for the descent by 9am. Lots of crevasses big and small to cross. Some require trusting snow bridges and plugs will hold. Others you hop over. One big school bus sized plug at 11,400' is the main concern that rangers have, since if that goes with someone on it, well, good luck. And if it goes, the route is done. 

Arrived at White River ranger station at 8am July 14 and finalized our permits. With 40lb packs, started hiking at 9am, hit Camp Shurman at 4pm. Spent the next 3 hours setting up tents, boiling water, having dinner, and organizing for the climb. Ranger came by to check permits and gave route update and recommendations. He suggested 9-10pm start in order to get off the mountain before sun increases the crevasse and serac risks, plan to be back at camp by 10am. We tucked in around 7:30pm and planned to get up at 10 to prep for climb. No one got any sleep.

Got up at 10pm and had everything prepped and ready to go by 10:45. We were one of the first groups to set off with many other teams coming up close behind. One member of our team had some issues during the first hour, so some of the teams passed us. It turned out that some of these teams were a lot slower than us so we got bottlenecked. There's not always good places to pass and often times when teams have someone struggling, they did not get off to the side to let others pass. It's difficult to communicate within a team due to the distance and wind unless you have radios. So the person at the back of the team in front of us often had no idea why they were stopped. We got off route once by blindly following the teams ahead and lost 30 mins here. We also chose the wrong route up based on the GPX we had to get up to the section just before Columbia Crest. We went up on heavily broken up snow, turns out everyone else was going up dirt slopes further right. With strong winds 15-25 mph, it got colder and colder the higher we went. And with all the stoppages and bottlenecks, we all got cold and ended up wearing most of our layers. Winds were with us pretty much the whole climb until about 10am during the descent. We found one spot out of the wind on the dirt section below the last short climb up to Columbia Crest. We had a snack and rest here before descending. Lots of parties on the mountain and it looked like pretty much everyone we recognized from camp had summited! We were one of the first ones back to camp at 11:45am. Many others rolled in after that. Still saw parties on the mountain descending when we left Camp Schurman at 2:30pm. Don't let your guard down, I punched through to my hip on the glacier out from camp - we were roped. The steep chossy scramble was a pain too being super tired and carrying 35lb packs. We were able to glissade all the way down inter glacier thankfully and then just had the 4 mile grind out to the TH. 

Tips:

1. Chossy scramble down to Emmons glacier to get to Schurman is slippery and tricky with a heavy pack up and down. Beware of rockfall. 
2. Rope up on the short glacier climb to Schurman. Crevasse danger is real. I punched through up to hip of one leg in afternoon on descent, but was able to pop back out luckily.
3. Don't underestimate the time and fuel it takes to boil water from snow. We had 8oz and 2 stoves and ran out of fuel, but just had enough.
4. It can get pretty windy at camp, secure your tent solidly. Several of our neighbor tents were pretty much flattened when we returned. And one of our tents was askew.
5. There's plenty of water sources to filter from TH all the way to mid Inter Glacier. 
6. Rangers are recommending 9-10pm start time. That makes this a night time climb. Don't underestimate the cold with 20 mph winds. We were wearing almost all layers on upper part of mountain.
7. Lots of people starting around the same time means bottlenecks. Some groups are slow and with some people struggling they stop and block the trail. There's not always an easy way to bypass due to steep slopes. Consider offsetting your start time based on what other teams are doing.
8. If you have a reliable GPX track, check it occasionally. We followed a couple teams ahead of us and eventually got off track around 11,600'. They found a way through but it was steep slopes and teams ahead were struggling and going very slow. We did get back to the main track but probably lost 30 mins here. 
9. It's good to have discussed in advance how to handle stoppages while roped. With the wind and the distance, it's almost impossible to communicate. We had 4 on our rope team and the front and back person had radios. 

Stats: 18.4 miles, 10,700' gain, 24:00 hiking and climbing time, 9:00 stopped time. 7 hours from TH to Camp Shurman. 8.5 hours from Camp Shurman to summit. 4 hours from summit back to Schurman. 4 hours from Schurman back to TH. 

GPX track (but note 2 sections where we did not take the ideal path on the way up - these are obvious deviations on the track): https://www.gaiagps.com/public/XhntnUFJm7Ov0S8QKQCDtSQe