This might’ve been one of the most successful, unsuccessful climbing trips I have ever been on. If you are a regular reader of mine you will realize that this is the fourth piece that I’ve written about Tahoma; Commonly known as Mt. Rainier. Tahoma is a singularly beautiful mountain, and last winter a buddy of mine asked me if I wanted to climb it with him via the Disappointment Cleaver route. “Why not”, I responded. I had always wanted to climb the mountain one more time, but I wanted to do so by a different, and more challenging route. (More on this later) I guess my logic for accepting his offer was the burgeoning realization that doing hardcore badass routes on big peaks is becoming more of a thing of the past for me, and that something tame like the DC, is maybe better suited to my abilities these days.
I invited my climbing partners Renee and Kevin; well known in the annals of PGH to come along as well. My buddy also invited people; family and friends, and before you could tie an alpine butterfly knot our group had expanded to eleven; the maximum number a permit would allow being twelve. Yikes! Now I was concerned, as were my partners. We don’t normally play well with others, and we certainly don’t climb in groups this size. It also transpired that the majority of this group with a couple of notable exceptions were complete novices to this type of climbing. What on earth had I gotten us into….
First things first however. Apparently these days one can’t just show up to Rainier and expect to climb it.
A wilderness permit is required.* And you can’t just walk up and say “pretty please” either.** You apply through a lottery process. You pays yer money, and you takes yer chances… And after you get that permit, you need to acquire your $68.00 yearly climbing permit.
*for overnight trips
**there are at times, some walk up permits available, but usually never for a large group
So, we started planning the trip, without really knowing if we would get the permit or not. Eventually we received word that we got lucky and were selected. We were now one step closer. I got designated as team leader(that and $5.00 will get you a cup of coffee in Seattle), so I started having weekly team video calls. We were a group that had diverse geographical locations so there was never any way to all meet in person at the same time. There were in fact three of the group that I wouldn’t meet until the day we started climbing. Every time I looked around there were more red flags, but still I kept going until it was for all intents and purposes too late to extract ourselves.
We covered all of the usual things on our calls. I pretty much used the same format I had used on the R3 calls. Training and Fitness. Injuries. Gear. Team Selection. Tents. Weather. The calls were a bit like herding cats though. There wasn’t one meeting where all of the participants showed up on the same call, or on time. Not one. Be that as it may, the calls added value and I think most of the folks saw that.
I mentioned some novices. Some of these folks would be stepping onto a glacier for their very first time. Fortunately some of them also lived in town, so we were able to get together several times for some dry land training and to teach some crevasse rescue skills, and basic glacier rope and knot work.
My two main concerns, were people’s fitness (mine included), and weather. In fact, according to the NPS, these are the top two reasons that people fail to summit the mountain, and approximately 50% of all summit attempts do indeed fail. I knew what I was personally doing for training; it was a lot, and I knew what my partners were doing, but I wasn’t getting much feedback on how or what the other folks were doing. As far as the weather was concerned, it kept being crappy. If you call -28C and 160kph winds crappy…
Within a week of our departure three things happened: Two of the team dropped out, a new climber joined us, and the bad weather finally broke. Loosing the two was a good thing, because as it turns out they were going to be a serious weak link. The new climber addition was a good thing, because Nicola was fit, motivated, highly experienced and skilled in SAR, and wilderness medicine. And… as you will soon learn, the break in the weather ended up being a bad thing. Our team actually ended up being a reasonable cross-section. We had several seasoned and experienced veterans, with significant mountain, and backcountry experience. Three of us had summited Rainer previously, along with many other more challenging peaks. Besides Nicola we also had Chris, another wilderness medicine doctor with some high mountain experience. Not too shabby of an addition to the team at all.
Our non-climbing background was pretty eclectic: Two doctors. One oral surgeon. A domestic engineer. A school kid. A web designer. A wildlife field biologist. A house builder. A physics professor. And whatever I am.
Eventually the long awaited day arrived, and the ten of us converged early in the morning at the Paradise ranger station to check in, get our permit, and of course pick up the infamous blue bags for human waste. (Digging a cat hole in the snow is another thing of bygone times…) However… To our surprise and dismay, we learned whilst we were being briefed, that the crux portion of the route had collapsed. Crikey! What did this mean? Well the crux was a spot where the guides who maintain the nominal route via the DC had anchored two extension ladders against a sort of bergschrund, or serac. The plug that these ladders were resting on collapsed, leaving a 15m tall overhanging ice face. There was no readily apparent way around this that made any sense, at least to most climbers.
The route was basically shut down for the time being. This news did not stop us, nor other parties from going up to at least Camp Muir to sort of wait and see. How much waiting, was dependent upon your permit and supplies, and of course your ambition. The weather, as I mentioned got better. Way better. Too much better as a matter of fact. It was downright hot. It was a real sweat dripping slog up to Muir in the heat. Our planning included to loosely adopt what the guide services do, in that if you can’t make it to Camp Muir within six and a half hours they likely won’t allow you to make a summit bid. Turns out we had no issues here, with all of us making it to camp in five hours. One of my main concerns ended up being totally unfounded. In fact if truth be told, I was, in spite of all the training, likely the least fit of the group.
Our first order of business upon arrival was to secure tent sites. It’s not quite Everest base camp, but there were a lot of tents. We walked down to pretty much the end of the line and grabbed what amounted to the last reasonably flat spots left. As it turned out these were actually the best spots there. Back when we were discussing gear on our calls we hummed and hawed over how many shovels we might need to bring. At the last minute at the trailhead we decided upon none. That ended up being a good decision. There were already a couple of previously constructed tent platforms that only needed minor excavation; that was easily accomplished with ice axes and boot stomping. The other areas were also flat enough to easily groom without shovels. Had it been windy our tent locations may have more exposed than others, but since it ended up being real calm it wasn’t an issue.
With camp set, our next order of business was to secure our water supply. For this we had a two pronged approach. We had some nifty black ziplock bags that worked a treat as a solar powered snow melting system. Our second prong was the good old Jetboil. Before long all our bottles were full and we never once had an issue with not enough water. Finally however, we needed to address the wooly mammoth in the ice, and decide what to do. We wandered around talking to other climbers in camp, and to some of the few parties that were descending from higher up. Although we were getting different stories, they all tracked around a central theme. The route wouldn’t go as is. The main differences we heard were whether guides were actively searching for and/or installing a new route or workaround. Some seemingly competent people had been up there and could not find a new way through. I kept waxing poetic back to my youth when this type of route finding on the mountain was easier. Can you say Climate Change? I didn’t hold out much hope that our mostly novice group would have much luck pushing a route through, and that was my stance that I voiced with the group. We decided to wait until the following day to see if a route was going to materialize, but looking at it logically it certainly didn’t seem that way. A few other groups were going to be heading up that night so presumably we would get fresher intel the following afternoon. So we left it that we would sleep in and use the next day to rest up, await any fresh news, and possibly put on a ‘snow school’ for those on our team who wanted to participate. With that we made our dinner preparations and got ready for bed.
I can’t vouch for the entire group but Renee, Kevin, and I really had no appetite, and basically just went through the motions of cooking and eating. It was still really early with lots of hours of daylight left, but the sun had gone behind the mountain and it was starting to cool down. Nothing really left for us to do but get into the tent. Tents were another topic that generated a good amount of discussion on our calls. Obviously we wanted to save weight, so our little sub group of three decided to share Renee’s tent, which is a very roomy two person number. There was only floor space for two Z- pads. It was a long night.
Morning dawned warm, calm, and clear. The warm part was a bit disconcerting. There was a fair bit of activity nearby in the form of both ice and rockfall. But…First things first… coffee. People were slowly stirring in our camp but there was no real need or urgency to get up and get moving, so most didn’t. In fact there were groups coming down the mountain already; before some of us had even pried open our sleepy eyes. Ours were the first tents that climbers had to pass coming back into camp. We were there eagerly awaiting each new arrival. What news from the front kind of thing… All reports were the same. No one was making it past the collapsed section, and no one was actively working on the route. Once our gang was all up, and had breakfasted we had a morning meeting. After discussing the options we knew about, based on the knowledge we had, and once everyone had their say, we came to the following action plan(s): Seven of us would do the aforementioned snow school. Three of us being experienced, with the other four being novices. Two wanted to go exploring up the glacier and over Cathedral Gap to Ingram Flats. Unfortunately these two had some of the least glacier experience. I openly advised them against it, yet off they went… Kevin opted to rest in camp, as it seems he slept the poorest of us all. After ‘school’ was over six of the group were going to break camp and head down (unless last minute news came through about the route). Nicola was to withhold her intention until later in the day. Renee, Kevin and I stated that we would stay another night regardless and make an attempt, even if only over to the collapsed section or the Disappointment Cleaver.
Snow School.
This turned out to be very useful and a lot of fun. We split into two roped teams; one of three and one of four. We covered a bunch of things like: tying in properly, spacing, how to move effectively, ice axe usage, how to ascend, how to descend, how to self arrest, and how to place a picket. We tramped around a bit and looked into a couple of crevasses.*** The second part of the class had us doing some crevasse rescue practice. Dillon, the youngest member of our team happily volunteered to jump into a crevasse. And jump he did! His rope partners had to self arrest to stop his fall. They then had to place a picket anchor, escape the belay and rig a pulley system to haul the stalwart lad out. They opted for a drop loop method, which they were able to rapidly rig. There was a bit of confusion in how the progress capture was rigged and they ended up using a redirect, and soon had the victim out. After this they rigged a Z-pulley to illustrate the differences between the two methods. In retrospect it became clear that all they needed to do was reverse the direction of the nano traxion and they would have been good. Using the redirect of course worked, but in doing so it negates one of the drop loops touted advantages; namely a lower stress on the anchor. All in all it took about 20 minutes to get him out. Nicola did a great job of leading and teaching the rescue exercise. Important to point out here, that this was in controlled, and highly favourable conditions. Not unexpected, on a steep slope, in a storm, at night, with only 2 or 3 on a rope. Food for thought…
*** the following day the lip of one of these crevasses collapsed…
Once our two wanderers had safely returned, and snow school had concluded, people started to break camp and pack up, as we had no different, or encouraging news about the route. Nicola, who was deferring her decision also decided to head down. So our big team was suddenly small. We all would have liked to hang out together longer and get to know our new friends better, but it was not to be. We started to discuss our plans for the next day. Renee was not feeling up to par so she figured that she would wait in camp whilst Kevin and I did our thing. As we were getting prepared for the evening, the climbing rangers were making their nightly rounds. We chatted with them for a long time, but no new route information was available. I think they were happy enough with our plan, preparations, and gear, and congratulated Renee on her tent anchoring. We decided to leave camp at 0100 and go as far as we could (or wanted to). Neither of us had slept too well in the tent so we abandoned Renee to her own devices, and went to sleep in the hut. That was a mixed experience to be sure. We both were much more comfortable in the hut, but probably didn’t sleep any better with all the coming and goings on in the shelter. Mostly people were trying to be quiet and respectful, but it’s difficult. There was one old codger who just could not talk in a whisper. It turned out this geezer was none other than Pastor Dave, with whom I had been talking to earlier on in day. We narrowly escaped his ministrations, as apparently he managed to ‘witness’ everyone else in the area. There were people leaving at all hours to head up the mountain presumably to do what we were planning to do. Some guys came into the hut at midnight to sleep, and some jamokes were wearing their crampons in the hut. By the time 0030 rolled around we were wide awake and decided to just get up and go.
We had done an excellent job of preparing the rope and gear before going to bed, so it was within minutes that we had donned our crampons and harnesses, shoved an handful of grub into our pie holes, and were moving across the ice. Very professional. It was warm, but the snow was firm and we were making reasonable time with crystal clear skies, and the Milky Way wheeling overhead. It was pretty easy going and we had a good pace but we were both feeling pretty shagged out. Once we had begun the ascent up from Cathedral Gap we saw a triplet of lights descending towards us from the Ingram. They had left camp at about 2200 last night, and turned back like everyone else. If our count was correct there were still two groups ahead of us. Once on Ingram flats we could see the lights of a few tents. Some folks opt to camp up here as opposed to Muir. It’s a trade off. You get a jump on the summit, and it’s usually less crowded, but it makes for a big first day. We traversed across the Ingram glacier following the well worn and marked path. We had to skirt some pretty big crevasses near where the trail intersects the Disappointment Cleaver, but it was fairly straightforward getting onto the Cleaver itself. Here at the base we noticed the first of the fixed lines. The warm weather and overall lack of snow meant that the ridge was bare, steep, loose rubble for its entirety. By this point I’d told Kevin that I thought that I’d had enough fun. I know he would have gone on, but he was gracious enough to not try and talk me into going further. It would’ve been a fool’s errand in the end anyway. Another couple of hundred meters of chossy elevation was about all we would have gotten out of it. We hung out there silently in the darkness for fifteen minutes or so, lost in our own thoughts, just sort of taking in the solitude, and the heavens. Eventually, we were getting a bit chilled, so we turned on our lights and headed back down.
We moved just as efficiently on the way down. There are two rocky sections where you need to short rope for safety, and as on the way up we were able to seamlessly and quickly rig Kiwi coils without hardly breaking stride. We met a couple of small groups heading up, doing what we had done, plus we saw a large guided group that had stopped at Ingram flats. They were going to be doing glacier practice instead of climbing the mountain they paid for… Lower down we met a couple of other young fellows who looked very ill-prepared, and were not moving very well. They claimed that they were doing fine. We got back to camp around 0430, and headed straight back to the hut and crawled into our waiting bags.
Those next couple of hours were the best sleep either of us had for several days. After the brief kip we got up and headed down to the tent and Renee. Coffee, some grub, and breaking camp were our next activities. This is when disaster struck. My coffee cup overturned, spilling the precious liquid across the snow. How would I be able to hike down now? Fortunately it was coffee bags, and I was able to re-steep an albeit weak cup… that would have to do. Unlike some of the punters from other groups we had seen yesterday we had our camp down, and packs loaded in short order, after the great coffee debacle. There was now nothing left for it but head back down. The snow was perfect. Just hard enough and not too slushy. Some folks had hiked up with skis and snowboards and were having a blast descending. We took the advantage to bum glissade when we could. But… holy Coney Island Batman… there was a virtual conga line of people stretching from Paradise to Muir. Obviously there were some climbers; both guided groups, and privateers like us, but mostly just mom and pop, buddy and sis. Kids, frat boys, girls in bikinis, and some seriously overweight and under prepared folks as well. People that shouldn’t even be walking at the shopping mall. Tourists from around the globe, including this one cool Indian family that were almost at Camp Muir slogging up the snowfield in pretty much their street clothes. To compound the craziness, as we drove out of the park we noticed a line of stopped vehicles many kilometers long waiting to get into the park under the timed entry system. Our good old friend Backhoe Billy would have done his nut…****
A few notes on gear and technique…
If you talk to 10 different climbers you are likely to get 10 different responses on what gear to have and how to rig a rope for glacier travel. Some of this is due to regional differences, topography, experience levels, and personal preferences. There are of course many ways to skin a cat. This is more or less how we did it: We roped-up according to the so called ‘rule of ten’ which is pretty standard in Washington’s North Cascades. What this means is that you take the number of climbers on a rope and subtract that number from ten. This leaves you with the number of arm spans between climbers. For example on our rope of three… 10-3=7. This means we had 7 arm spans between climbers. This is accomplished by clipping one climber (least experienced) into the middle of the rope using an alpine butterfly or figure-8 on a bight. Then 7 arm spans on each side of the centre are the two other similar clip in spots. I clipped in with one large locking carabiner, and one reversed wire gate carabiner. The remaining length of rope at each end is coiled and carried by each of the end climbers to be used as ‘rescue’ rope. When Kevin and I were on a rope of just the two of us, we extended that distance by a couple of arm lengths. Each climber carried two ice screws, and two prussik’s. Each team had two pickets. Each team also had two pulleys and two progress capture devices. Also of note we were using 7.5mm ropes. It should go without saying that if you use ropes this skinny, that you need to ensure all of your rope devices are suitable for that diameter.
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
– Bob Dylan
Grub: Sharps Roast House, Mill Haus Cider Company
Coffee: Seven Bridges
Physics: Pout = ncapture (Pfusion – Pconduction – Pradiation)
**** Interesting factoid… it was with Backhoe Billy and KK when I was last on this route… 44 years ago to the day…