What an adventure! We climbed up the Railroad Grade to 6200', set up camp, set our alarms for 11:45pm, began up Easton Glacier just after midnight and arrived at the summit for a beautiful sunrise at 6 am. The final push up the Roman Wall is breathtaking, in more ways than one.
This was our first go at mountaineering, and fortunately we had two seasoned veterans two guide us. The total preparation of gathering the necessary gear and training was over a month from when we penciled the summit date on the calendar. After we were invited, we set out to Cable Line trails, Mt. Si, Mailbox, Camp Muir, etc. etc. throughout the week and the weekends with heavy packs to prepare. The thing I wish we had prepared for better is the stiffness of mountaineering boots and the fitting of the crampons. Other than that, we were ready!
At the trailhead, there was still snow about a half mile from the the true trailhead, and enough cars to force us to park nearly another half mile from there. Besides a few dry patches here and there, as well as the Railroad Grade, we were walking on snow for the entirety of our trip.
The most difficult part of the first day is finding a good place to cross a decent sized creek. Poles were very helpful here for tiptoeing across the rocks. From there, we followed some GPX routes up the snow toward the Railroad Grade. I remember thinking to myself "why is it called that?" but when you're on it, you just know why.
There were quite a few tents set up, including some large groups around us. We overheard one group of about 12 saying they were setting their alarms for midnight, so we in turn set ours for 11:45. Turns out they were headed up to attempt Sherman rather than Baker, but I'm still glad we had a little space to go our own speed in the dark. As hard as it was, we attempted sleep at about 6:45, but of course had to wake up to take in the sunset. When the sun finally disappeared, we went back to try to catch a few more hours before the alarm went off.
The first few hours of the climb itself was dark, cold when we were exposed to wind, but not all that difficult due to steepness. There was a wide boot path to follow, and we approached the crater rim just as the sky turned from black to blue. The sulfur smell we had heard about is a real thing, and the steam coming up from the Volcano is something I won't forget.
The Roman Wall was just awesome, and we were glad to have put some distance between us and the steady line of headlamps just below. The solo hiker (our guides warned us this was not advised, as he had no rope team) who had passed us on the way up was already on his way back down, and it was then that I realized we were really going to make it to the summit. After the Roman Wall was over, we unclipped the rope from our harnesses and turned off our headlamps, just as the sun rose behind the summit.
Total time from the car to camp at 6200': About 5 hours, at a leisurely pace. My backpack for typical weekend overnights is about 35 lbs, but with the crampons, helmet, rope, ice axe, harness and lockers was just over 60lbs.
Total time from Camp to the Summit: 6 hours
Total time from the summit back to camp: 3 hours
Camp back to the car: 4 hours
Please be careful, the snow is really softening up in the sunshine, and one person from our group postholed and smashed her knee into a rock with just a few miles back to the car. It was an answer to prayer that she was able to continue despite some serious pain.
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