The weekend began with some bad weather forecast, saying it would be raining and cloudy at Rainier. As our days passed by, cloudy and
occasionally drizzling at Ashford. We spent half a day around Paradise to play around with crampons and ropes, and warmed up with some
self-arrest practices.
Monday, it's a go. Weather report, relayed from Camp Muir, was saying that cloud deck was below 8300' feet, and Camp Muir was having gorgeous
weather. We started at Paradise (5500') with heavy fog, and cold temperature. It was quite discouraging where you could not really see where
you were going up to.
After 3 hours of miserable pounding upwards on slushy snow, ...we finally saw some hope. Traces of blue sky started to show above us. And as
we passed 8300', wow, it was heaven. We were then above the cloud deck, overseeing Mt Adams from far, and occasially seeing St Helens popping
out of the cloud. The view was encouraging, the weather was encouraging, and yes we soon saw Camp Muir in sight.
With the cloud deck below us, it really made you feel like heaven. I had been to Camp Muir many times, but mostly in the later season with
foggy and windy weather at 10,000ft. But here it was calm, no wind, and blue sky and sunny.
A mid-night wake up call started our climb. First task of the day, I chowed down 3 energy bars and a handful of caffeinated jelly beans, and drank as
much as I could. Next task, ...no. 2!! By 1:15am, we had roped up and ready to go. In a sense, it was very rushed, and a bit too organized that
made me feel like I was missing something.
Our route went through 3 glacier, Cowlitz, then Ingraham, and traversed to Emmons Glacier (the largest Glacier in Lower 48), climbed up to the crater.
See our climbing route here. The red line was the route that we took, and the black
dots were our stops.
Sunrise was at about 4:40am, I was lucky to snap a few shots while traveling north with my left on the uphill side. Weather had been calm and kind to us.
From the start, there was no wind, it wasn't cold. Not until we passed 12,300ft, I didn't even put on my 2nd layer. By 6:00am, all we were thinking about
are getting to the top, and at 7:15am, we saw the rim of the crater. We stepped inside the crater, and mission was almost complete. After a quick break,
we strolled up to the highest point of Mt Rainier. Yes we did it! 14,410 ft.
My favourite pic on this trip. Just above cloud deck at 8300 ft.
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