This last weekend, on May 3, I returned to Mt Rainier for
another hike up to Camp Muir. This time, it was supposed to be a time trial for
the 2014 GCC students. They must be able to reach Camp Muir from the Paradise
parking lot within 5 hours. However, as of two days before the climb, no
students had signed up, so we cancelled the official event. This was the first Camp Muir time trial scheduled and
apparently, no one wanted to be first.
Even though the time trial was cancelled, I wanted to go
anyway, just to prove to myself that I was in good enough shape to make it to
Muir. There was one other person who wanted to go as well – an
instructor who had gone through the GCC a few years ago. His name is Mat and we
carpooled down to the mountain together. We arrived at the Paradise parking lot
around 6:30am, and to our surprise, there was no one else in the parking lot at
all. It was completely empty. Had they closed The Mountain? It was a strange
sight, especially since just last weekend, there were 30-40 cars already there at
this same time.
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| Is the mountain closed? |
It was cold and windy, and there was an icy snow that was
blowing sideways as we got our gear out of the car. One of the principles
of climbing is that you always want to start out cold (the idea here being that
once you get hiking, you will warm up very quickly and you don’t want to have
to stop a few minutes into the hike to do a clothing adjustment). With this nice breeze and low temps, we were certainly going to be starting out cold.
Conditions this week were different from last week. Last
week, there was a lot of soft new snow that required snow shoes from
the very beginning. This time, it had been warm and dry for most of the week
before the current storm front had moved in last night, so there very little fresh snow. We both had our snowshoes but kept them strapped to our packs most
of the day. We made good progress heading out from the parking lot, past Alta
Vista and Marmot Hill, and on up to Panorama Point, where the trail is at its
steepest. Near the top of that hill, the crunchy snow turned to solid ice. This
made things a little dicey, since I had not brought along my crampons or ice
axe. Oops. We kept on going, but it was tricky since you couldn’t do kick-steps
into the ice. The path that had been going straight up the hill turned into a
diagonal traverse due to the slope, and at this point it narrowed to a few
inches across (so you did not have enough room to place both feet together side
by side). There weren’t any foot prints and I was just hoping the new boots had
sticky enough rubber to adhere to the ice. Mat had gone on ahead and was
waiting at the top while I slowly made my way up. Btw, Mat did a lot of waiting
on this hike – he is much faster so he would go on ahead while I plodded along,
then would stop and wait until I caught up, then cruise on ahead again.
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Once at the top of Panorama Point, the wind increased and
visibility dwindled, just like last week. We were not worried about getting lost but it was slowing
us down a bit. It was now hard to see the dips and rises in the terrain. I’d be
walking along and be suddenly faced with a steep wall of white that had blended
in with the rest of the scenery. I had seen Mat disappear ahead along this route,
so I knew it was the right way. Not knowing how high the wall was, I would just
start walking straight up until I felt the terrain level out. It felt like
Batman and Robin waking up a building in the old TV series, but without the
rope. This happened a few times. By the same token, it was impossible to pick out any dips in the terrain,
so you’d be walking along and would suddenly step down a couple feet into a dip
in the ice that you didn’t even see. Trust me, that’s hard on the knees.
As we went further up, the wind got a little stronger, and
we kept on slipping and sliding our way upward. I finally put on the snowshoes,
which helped out with the traction. Would have been better to have the crampons
though.
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| Top of Panorama Point. Lots of ice, with a dusting of light snow on top for extra slippery-ness |
There weren’t many others out there at that time. The only
other group we saw were a few guys with fancy plastic sleds who thought they
would ride them down from Panorama Point, but once they got to the top, they
walked back down due to the icy conditions. They would have been going way too
fast and would have wiped out for sure.
After navigating the hills and valleys between Panorama
Point and McClure Rock for a while, Mat suggested that we call it quits. I felt
good enough to keep going, and I know he wasn’t tired, but it was probably the
right decision for that day. We made our way over to McClure Rock, at around
7400’ elevation. The wind was howling, snow coming in sideways, temp was 28
degrees and the wind chill was probably in the single digits. Not too bad,
really. Our gear worked fine and we weren’t cold at all. I had on a lightweight
baselayer, heavy wool mid-layer, soft shell jacket, hardshell jacket, then put
on the lightweight down jacket while we were stationary. Was also wearing a
full balaclava and ski goggles. With the two hoods from the jackets up over the
balaclava, things were fine. For gloves, I was using some alpine gloves by REI
that had separate liners. These were working well too. I still had my super
warm OR mountaineering mittens in the pack as well as the huge REI puffy tucked
away in the bottom. It was nice to know that we were in nasty conditions but
the gear was holding up fine and I still had a couple more layers in reserve if
we got stuck somewhere.
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| Selfie time at 7300' (That's me on the left, in case you were wondering...) |
I had brought along a PB&J summit sandwich, so I munched
on that for lunch. It was funny because the sandwich get coated with snow and
ice as I was holding it, waiting to take the next bite. It was like a PB&J Whole
Grain popsicle.
The trip back down was not too bad, except for the hill down
from Panorama Point. The snowshoes provided good traction on the minor downhill
slopes but when it got steep, I didn’t trust them to hold. I slipped a few
times and eventually just took them off for the steepest parts of the descent.
It was a lot easier to plunge step down the hill rather than try to skate along
on the surface with the snowshoes. Note to self: It’s kind of hard to undo the
snowshoes and stash them away in the pack while perilously perched on the side
of a steep, icy slope where you have a tenuous foothold at best. Better to
bring the damn crampons next time and leave the snowshoes for the fluffy soft
snow. I would have felt far more confident with the crampons and ice axe combo
than the big flappy snow shoes and flimsy trekking poles.
Halfway down, we encountered a strange group coming up. They
all seemed to be marching very closely together in two parallel lines up the
hill. As we got closer, I noticed these guys had massive expedition packs on,
all bulging full of gear. They were also carrying skis and big bundles of wands.
The wands are used to mark the trail to the summit. All of these guys were tied
together like a wagon team, hauling up a large metal door that was tied to a
simple sled. Mat got a pic as they passed by. These guys looked like they were in
no hurry, and they were most likely going to be up on the mountain for a few
days. I asked what the deal was with the door – they said it was for the
weather station up at Muir. These were probably mountain rangers who were going
to do some repairs at Camp Muir, then move on and mark out the trail to the
summit for the climbing season. You got the impression these conditions were
nothing to them. I was in awe of these dudes.
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| Mountain Rangers at work |
So, this is now two weeks in a row where I went to Rainier with
the goal of getting to Camp Muir and was turned around both times. It’s
frustrating, but I think that each time I go, I get stronger and learn more. It
won’t always be nasty weather up there, and one of these days, hopefully in the
next few weeks, I will get there in a nice weather window and make it to Muir
so I can wave at the web cam.
For the Rainier climb, I need to be able to do the
equivalent of two trips to Muir back-to-back in two days. That will be a good gauge
as to my fitness level. I will keep going back until I can do this without too
much strain. Only then will I feel strong enough to try for the summit.
For a lot of other people, like those big rangers or for
strong guys like Mat, heading up the summit isn’t so hard. I have heard of many
climbers who just head up there with very little extra training needed. That’s not
the deal for me. It is just going to take a little more work to get up there.
KCM&DS
