The Mt. Rainier Experience — Life Around the campfire

This year I decided to tackle the ascent of Mt. Rainier. Living in Seattle, it is difficult to avoid the view of the mother mountain on a clear day. The view served as a nagging reminder that I should seek out a worthy outdoor pursuit, perhaps a mountaineering pursuit. I yielded to the overwhelming idea and made a plan to summit the mountain.

Luckily, I have amazing friends who also planted the seed of climbing Mt. Rainier. When they were talking about it, I felt like it may be possible for me to do it too. We started training, physically and technically, for the challenge.

I started training intentionally in early May 2019 by going on hikes, walking to work, and biking to work. My friends and I practiced crevasse rescue at an outdoor climbing wall and at local parks, pretending to fall into crevasses and rescue each other in urban environments. My skills and confidence were slowly building with the impending summit attempt dates.

We had a few date ranges set in order to account for the weather. The first set of dates were in late June. Unfortunately, the weather throughout all of Washington was dangerous for any summit attempt. Our plans for Mt. Rainier, Mt. Shuksan, and Mt. Stuart all fell through. The second set of dates for summiting Mt. Rainier were with another group of friends in the beginning of July.

On the night of July 3rd, I drove up to the Mt. Rainier overnight parking lot after a twelve-hour shift at the hospital. Around midnight, I went to sleep in my car, excited to make my way towards Ingraham Flats in the morning. When I awoke from a few hours of sleep, I met up with two friends to hike up through Paradise and the Muir Snowfield. When we got to Camp Muir, we were planning to meet four other friends

The 4.5 miles to Camp Muir were difficult physically, but not very technically difficult. I kicked in steps and stared at the white snow beneath me for hours. After awhile of strenuous hiking and a couple snack breaks, I crested the snowfield into Camp Muir. We happily greeted the rest of our group and had to luxury of using a bathroom at 10,000 ft. I forgot to mention that two of the friends that were part of our group are around nine years old! It filled me with joy to see them filled with energy and so excited to be at Camp Muir.

To hike from Camp Muir to Ingraham Flats we needed to rope up, giving us the opportunity to put our technical skills to use. We made two teams, team of three and a team of four, and set off.

Little Tahoma from the ascent to Ingraham Flats

Once we arrived at Ingraham Flats, situated at 11,100 ft, we leveled out an area for camp, put up a tent, dug snow stakes in for our tent, boiled snow for water, made dinner, and prepared our gear for the next day. This complex nighttime routine took hours and was quite exhausting. I underestimated how difficult it is to shovel out a large platform for a tent and how much snow you need to boil for a couple liters of water. I went to bed around 8pm even though we were intending to go to bed around 4 or 5pm. Our alarm clocks were set to 11:30pm that day- insane. In usual Stephanie fashion, I snoozed the alarm until midnight or so.

We roped up very early in the morning- or would you call it very late at night- and began the summit push. Rope team after rope team were lined up to traverse across a glacier and then start ascending the Disappointment Cleaver. Rocks and ice were falling nearby. Ominous thumping and crashing sounds surrounded us in the dark. I walked as quickly, yet steadily as I could, because I felt pressured to keep on moving for safety and a timely summit in order to reduce the risk of encountering a storm.

The sun began to rise and the air became thinner and thinner. To my surprise, I did not feel the effect of altitude. I kept on waiting to be struck with a headache, nausea, vomiting, or anything, but nothing came. I decided to be thankful for this and carry on through the glacial landscape. After many hours of walking, skirting around crevasses, and clenching my ice axe tightly, we neared the summit. It was happening!

Inside the cinder cone, I dropped all my stuff down and ran across the snowfield to the actual summit and the summit registrar. I was so excited to be on the top of Mt. Rainier, but also feeling rushed to get back down to better and warmer weather. It was so cold and windy!

I did not bring a thicc puffy so I used a sleeping bag to keep warm at the summit

We descending quickly, as snow and fog were setting in. When we got to Ingraham Flats, we realized our tent had blown away, but a climbing ranger was able to stop it before it got too far. What a beginner mistake. I felt so silly that we did not dig our tent stakes deep enough. Luckily, everything was retrieved. The tent poles were cracked, though.

The kids were beginning to get really tired and found it hard to muster the energy to continue the descent back down to Paradise. Once they came around, the descent to Paradise was amazing. Beautiful views surrounded us and the weather improved. We were able to slide most of the way down from Camp Muir.

Once we got to Paradise, we all look wiped and were looking forward to a hearty warm meal. We waited for the whole group and then went to a shotty dive bar and diner within thirty minutes from Mt. Rainier National Park. The food absolutely hit the spot and we exchanged stories, insights, and takeaways from the last couple days.

It is amazing how one can have such a big experience in only two days.

Stay tuned for more blog posts in this series

The Mt. Rainier Experience: My Experience