Dave Hahn - Rainier, August 25 - 28

Forecasts weren't calling for particularly good climbing weather when we went up Friday the 27th. At Paradise we began in mist and wet cloud with not much to look at for views (other than about a million wildflowers along the trail).  Unexpectedly, we emerged from the cloud just before Pebble Creek and were treated to big views of Mount Rainier.  The last hours of our approach hike put us well above the cloud layer which seemed to cover all of Southwest Washington and Northern Oregon.

That evening, conditions seemed to continually improve and when we woke at 12:30 AM things couldn't have been much better for a summit climb.  We left Camp Muir at 2 AM and walked in calm, starry and crowd-free conditions up to Ingraham Flats at 11,000 ft.   For late August, it was still relatively easy and straightforward for our teams to traverse onto Disappointment Cleaver and proceed up the rocky spine of the ridge.

We could see the first hints of daybreak from the 12,300 ft top of the Cleaver around 5 AM as we rested.  Next we pushed up and over onto the Emmons Glacier and we were happy to find that a tenuous crevasse bridge at 12,700 ft was still hanging in for us.  The teams eased up onto the Northeast corner of the mountain, zig-zagging up the Emmons Shoulder in a very cold breeze.  At "high break" around 13,500 ft, we watched the sunrise, but by then we were wearing big down coats and were destined to keep them on for several hours before the sun gave us any heat to go along with the daylight.  It was plenty cold as the rope-teams moved into the summit crater, but winds weren't bad on Columbia Crest, which we reached in a little more than six hours from high camp.  Seattle and Tacoma still looked to be deep in cloud, but all of the Pacific Northwest big mountains were out and in the clear.

Descent to Camp Muir went smoothly -we reached it around 1 PM- and although the day was still a little on the cold side, nobody seemed to mind wearing a sweater in the refreshing breeze.  We reached Paradise just before 5 PM and returned to summer in Ashford by 6 PM.

-RMI guide, Dave Hahn