You undoubtedly have seen that novelty toy—teeth that chatter when you wind them up. The same clattering sound echoed in our tent about midnight near the 8,000-foot level of Mount Rainier Thursday, July 21. The point of hiking up Rainier again was to acclimatize to the elevations around Cuzco, Peru, which is situated at 11,000 feet, 4,000 feet higher than our last hike. Our objective this time was Camp Muir, which is at 10,000 feet. We would hike part-way Thursday, camp on snow, and then complete the hike Friday morning, returning to Maple Valley by 7 p.m. Friday evening.
Well, that was the plan.
When Roger, Ron and I arrived at the Paradise parking lot Thursday, we were confronted with a gray setting, a chilly mist and a light drizzle. But Roger was as undeterred as Charlie Brown of the Peanuts comic strip, who insisted it was “only a little rain” while the rest of the baseball team scrambled for home in a deluge. The fact that others were gearing up for a climb made what we were doing seem, uh, sane.
The mountain makes its own weather, and this time it whipped up a chilly treat for us. That’s Ron on the left, being photographed by Roger.
We hiked up snowy switchbacks. A line of Fort Lewis soldiers overtook us and gradually disappeared in the mist ahead on their way to the summit. On one of the switchbacks along a 50 degree slope, it became clear that prescription eyeglasses which darken from ultraviolet rays are not the best eye wear on a gray day characterized by different shades of white. We guessed that the wind was gusting to to 40 mph at times.
At about 8,200 feet we decided to camp behind a rocky outcrop, chopping out some snow to make a level area for our tents, and then wrestling them into position against the wind gusts. Roger had packed silicon ear plugs to help us sleep through the loud pops the wind would make as it buffeted our tent. They worked, but that wasn’t the only problem.
The best part of the evening was pouring boiling water into our freeze-dried food packets from REI. The worst part was realizing that our sleeping bags weren't up to the cold. No, wait, the worst part was having to get up at midnight, clamber out over slippery frozen snow, and search through several layers of clothing for that shivering body part that had absolutely no empathy about my need to relieve myself.
The good news about the night call was that moving around warmed me up – briefly. I took the opportunity to measure my pulse. 60. Normally it is 51. It had been 48 when I awoke at Roger’s the night before and measured it. A quick Google search has shown that the 20 percent increase was likely due to elevation.
After a night of fitful sleeping, I awoke at 4 a.m. for a peek out of my tent at the mountain.
When I re-awoke at 6, a mist had hidden everything, But eventually the sun began to burn it off.
When we finally rose for breakfast, we found tracks, left by a fox who prowled around our tent before the snow was completely crusted over the night before. Above us we could see our next objective, Anvil Rock. That’s the pokey little promontory on the left side of the photo below. On the right is Little Tahoma, which qualifies as the third highest peak in Washington. Anvil rock is at 9,000 feet, and it was a good three hours away.
From our camp we could see two other magnificent peaks. One is Mount Adams, shown below.
The other is Mount St. Helens. This view shows the massive wound in her side, where she blew out on May 18, 1980, covering, among other things, the third house from the summit, which our friends had constructed there. This angle is the one that David Johnson enjoyed from what he thought was a position of safety. (Last words: "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” He said a mouthful.)
Closer-in peaks would stick up through the clouds from time to time:
We smeared on more sun block, making sure to place it inside our nostrils, and set out. Others were already ahead of us. Before we had even started breakfast, two young men in shirtsleeves were walking by – they had left Paradise about 6 a.m. and were crossing the crusty snow without those spikey devices you attach to hiking boots called crampons. Below us strings of hikers came into view.
I didn’t think 8,000 feet would be so much to endure. But what we discovered was how tired we were, and how exhausting it was to climb, even though we were packing lighter loads. Every 20 steps I stopped to take several breaths. A video I shot of Roger showed him taking 12 steps in 20 seconds. Walking around my condo afterward, I paced myself at 30 steps. I think the chill of the night and lack of sleep were a major contributing factor, but clearly altitude had its impact. We never reached Camp Muir. We never even reached Anvil Rock. But we did get to the base of it, at the 8,700 foot level, where Roger peered down a “bergschrund”, the highest crevasse on a glacier. In the photo below, from the left, are Anvil Rock, Roger, the bergschrund, and Little Tahoma.
At that elevation, and with all the snow around, you might think it would be cold. But it felt like 70-80 degrees. The sun block worked fairly well, except for my wrists, which I hadn’t covered well.
The descent took about 5 hours, assisted by occasional glissades and a remarkable technique called the “plunge step” which takes you down snowy slopes pretty briskly. That little dark area in the photo below is me glissading down a bank on our previous hike.
When we reached Paradise at 8 p.m., there was a treat awaiting us: A fox was scampering around the parking lot, looking for his next meal.
It’s one month until I leave for Peru. Do I really want to hike to the summit of Mount Adams (12,300 feet)?
Love,
Robert
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