We got home safely at 11:45pm on August 11, 2009. We were mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. What happened up on Mt. Rainier is hard to fully capture in words but we’ll try to tell the short story here.
BroMan planned a 4-day climb on Mt. Rainier where we would be spending one night on the summit. We have done this before and experienced spectacular weather. This probably should have been our clue that we would not be as fortunate twice.
Camping on the summit of Mt. Rainier is generally not done by climbers because one must haul all their gear (about 60 pounds) to the top. Since we are not one to follow, that challenge is what makes it so appealing. We spent the first night at Camp Schurman at 9,460 ft which is the standard high camp for most climbers making a summit bid. We ran into our first snag here. Turns out the BroMan has two Mountain Hardware tents - a two man and a 3 man tent. Jeff brought the two-man tent with the 3-man poles! Utt oh.. We discovered this little mishap during setup. But, climbing usually requires some creativity and this was no exception. There is always something! Matt saw that we could probably remove sections from the poles and "make it work". We created a little assembly line - tedious work. Two hours later, cold hands and shivering, we finally got our tent up. This could have been a expedition-ending mistake but thanks to Matt, onward and upward.
The second night was at 12,500 ft where we had to dig in a platform on the snow and ice on a 40 degree slope. Finally, we arrived at the summit (14,411 ft) for the 3rd night inside the crater. The weather Friday thru Sunday was fantastic! There were almost no winds and we were under beautiful clear blue skies. Everything was going according to plan and it was shaping up to be a great trip. We reached the summit at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. We had plenty of time to setup camp, melt snow and eat before the sun went down behind the crater rim when it gets too cold to be outside tent.
As the sun went down the winds picked up and got worse as the night went on pushing our tent to its limit. Note that this was the ONLY night we failed to stake the guy wires of the tent - this was a mistake. It was a sleepless night as the tent kept buckling under powerful wind shear all night. Our plan was to leave at 8am to climb down. But, as we stuck our heads out to see the damage from the night, there was 80-100 mph winds, but now the clouds had moved in and we were in near whiteout with about 40 ft visibility. It was an easy decision to wait this one out. We figured if the weather would break even a little during the day we would head down as fast we could. The break never happened so we spent the next 24 hours developing our next plan of action. It was decided regardless of the weather the next morning we would start down climbing. The plan was to get up a 6am and be on our way by 7am. Of course, breaking camp in high winds with rime ice on everything is a real challenge! We knew this plan had some major risks, but we didn’t know how long we would be stuck on the summit due to the weather. Our resources (fuel and food) would eventually run out in a day or so. So it was settled. Tomorrow morning we make a break for it.
A 60+ pound pack (with ice on everything), 100 mph winds and whiteout make for one nasty combination. We were on our way an hour later than what we hoped at 8am. The ironic thing was that our extra heavy packs were actually an advantage because they helped keep us grounded when we were crossing back over the crater rim! We had never experienced winds that high. We couldn’t see anything and keeping upright on our feet was a challenge to say the least. Any exposed skin was freezing instantly. One foot forward, blown back three. We were getting really nervous at this point. Was it the right choice to head down in this? The winds were actually much worse than the day before when we went to the rim to call our wives (Matt's cell phone did not work in the crater - Jeff's was dead). We couldn’t even see were to step next on the other side below the crater rim. Route finding was really difficult and near impossible at times. To be on a 40 degree slope and having to jump crevasse this was life threatening and we knew it. The ice was forming so fast on our cloths and gear that we had to keep breaking it off so that we could at least move. Our wind pants were collecting so much ice and weight that they were slipping down - we had to pull them up every 5 minutes or so. We were glad we had our ski goggles and were constantly wiping them just so you could see a little of what was in front of us. Picture this: constantly scraping the ice off of the outside of your goggles, having them fog on the inside, all the while trying to walk down on a steep icy slope! We just wanted to rip them off so as to see clearly but the glare and exposed skin kept them in place. It was a feeling akin to suffocating. This was the first time of our climbing career where we thought "are we going make it off this mountain??"
We had to make the right decisions at the right time. Matt kept Jeff in check, Jeff kept Matt in check. The decision was to free-climb (i.e. no rope) the upper section down to the saddle because the ice would have prevented any arrests as our axes would not have held anyway. But, turns out we never did get the frozen rope out and ended up "soloing" the entire 5,000 foot decent to Camp Schurman. Probably not the best decision we made that day. One advantage is it did allow us to descend quicker. A huge part of safety on a mountain is the ability to move fast especially in the conditions we had. Truthfully, we were not sure that our cloths were adequate to keep us warm unless we were moving so we kept on the go.
Heading down is only one aspect. You must be going the right way! We knew we could down climb into real trouble if we weren’t focused the whole time. We had to route find our way around a few poor ice/snow bridges that we spotted on our way up. And actually made a wrong decision at one point whereby we unnecessarily jumped over a 4-foot crevasse, descended and then had to re-ascend that same section and jump back over again. This kind of "down and then back up again route finding" was exasperating and slowed our progress. It happened at least 3 times. Jeff actually lost his crampon on a very steep section with a huge "shrund" opened below him. Perched on a 50 degree slope with a heavy pack, one crampon holding you to "semi" terra firma while reattaching another crampon is not fun! This is where a rope would have been preferred. A huge lesson learned.
It took 7 hours of navigating via a "backtrack" on our GPS to descend the upper Emmons glacier. Note that their was a foot of fresh snow from 13,000 down to 10,500 feet with only remnants of the former foot path visible from time to time. Some 13 (or so) crevasse crossings later, we reached Camp Schurman at 9,460 ft reporting in with the Ranger there. Then there still was another 5,000 ft of strenuous down climbing in the rain, more crevasse crossings along with 2,000 feet of boulder hopping on the inter-glacier to reach the trailhead. We actually jumped over 4 new open crevasses that we walked right over only 4 days earlier! The snow bridges must have deteriorated quickly due to hot temperatures as we never saw any terrain variations on our ascent. Finally we arrived at the trailhead some 5 hours later at 8:10 pm on August 11 safe and sound. We had descended 10,000 feet in 12 long hours. This was one of the hardest things that either of us had ever done. It was mentally, physically and emotionally taxing to say the least. A 10,000 foot day under the best of circumstances is difficult but this was ridiculous! We embraced for a second. This epic was finally over.
People always ask "why do you climb?" Generally, we like being free and out in the open wilderness. There is the "cool gear". But probably the biggest reason we do what we do is the mental and physical challenge. One must learn to control their fear and manage the pain. The same is true for everyday life. The good Book says "fear not for I have overcome the world". Ultimately, God was our guide and the only one that could arrest our fears. He did. We survived to climb another day and hopefully wiser for it.
