[TR] Mt Rainier NP - DC 7/12/2011

[Kaskadekid]

Trip: Mt Rainier NP - DC

 

Date: 7/12/2011

 

Trip Report:

After several years of procrastination and many excuses of why we could not expend the time needed to train for Mt Rainier...a group of friends and I made the commitment earlier this year that we were going to climb Rainier this summer.

 

Two of us out of our group of six had done a fair amount of alpine climbing and were assigned the task of "training" the rest on the basics of self arrest, rope travel, common knots, crevasse rescue, etc... After a couple months of training hikes, multiple slogs to Muir, and a sucessful ascent of Hood we felt ready for Rainier!

 

Because of the varying ability and fitness levels in our group we designed the itinerary of our climb to maximize acclimatization. Our plan was to spread our ascent over 3 days, as most physiology texts indicate it takes a minimum of 48hrs for the body to really start producing more RBC's.

 

We started out from the tourist mad house of Paradise in the afternoon on Sat the 9th. We hiked up to the top of sugarloaf at about the 8500ft level and set up camp. We were supprised to find a small stream that saved us from melting snow. The spot had natural shelter and there were minimal winds so we got a great nights rest.

 

The next morning did a little exploring on the paradise glacier. Had a great breakfast and headed for Muir. Because of our good rest and relative head start we were able to cruise past most of the Muir crowd arriving at Muir at about 10:30am. We had planned on tenting at Muir, but since the public shelter was empty we decided to stay there for the night. Because we arrived so early we had plent of time to melt snow, cook, and just hang out! We had some great chats with climbers from all over! Muir is a great place to experience mountain culture at its best! Having said that...the toilets at Muir still have the ability to make your eyes feel like you just walked into a cloud of tear gas. We talked to the climbing rangers about the weather and were told an upperlevel low was moving in over the next two days which meant the weather could be quite variable. They recommended we just keep good tabs on what visual weather signs we could observe and procede from there. This uncertainty about the weather did concern us some but we just vowed to be observant. The public shelter filled up that night and it was a little less peaceful than the previous night... I would assume that a few of the occupants might have used CPAP machines at home based on the amount of snoring...oh well who wants to pack one of those up to camp Muir.

 

The next moring we set off for Ingraham flats. We crossed the upper cowlitz without any ice/rockfall and made it to Ingraham in an little over an hour. Ingraham was great without any open crevasses in the camp area and well established tent spots with robust snow walls. We quicly set up camp and started boiling snow for our summit push. The view of the route was good and i was supprised to see the cleaver almost completely covered with snow with very minimal rock exposed. The weather continued to be partly to mostly sunny with light winds. We decided our start time would be about 11:30pm so went to bed at about 5pm. Winds picked up and a little ice squal came through at about 6pm. This didn't bother us much as weather that high on the mountain is variable.

 

We woke up at 11:30 and starter prepping for the climb. The weather was perfect. Clear with light clouds at the summit. It looked like our summit trip would be a breeze. We had two rope teams, one three-person and one four-person. The three-person team, which included me, head out first. We made good time until we hit a section of fixed ropes on the lower cleaver. The lead on our team had significant difficulty with clipping in and out. Once this section was passes we made great time and reached the top of the cleaver at about 2am. This is where the whole climb changed.

 

It seems like once we hit the top of the cleaver someone hit a switch and turned the weather from July conditions to January conditions. Winds kicked up to 40-50. And it started snowing like mad. Thank goodness for the wanding the guides place because in many spots the trail was copletely drifted over. Many times because of the wind and blowing snow we would just have to start out in the general direction we thought the next wand would be until we actually found it. Becase of the blowing/drifting snow many of the smaller crevasses became obscured. We had three members of our teams punch through as they were walking. Fortunatly, none of them went past their chest. The winds intensified as we summited. I am not sure how cold it was at the summit but it was so cold that when I pulled by camera out to take a picture, it went dead immediatly. We only stayed at the top for less than 10min and headed back down. Unfortunatly the consistency of the new snow was such that even my anti-balling plates on my crampons did not help/much with balling. Coming down the cleaver with balled up crampons is a real butt clencher... On the way down everything socked in and this added to our descent time. Finally we arrived back at Ingraham at about 9:30am.

 

The winds started gusting to 60-70 and rain/ice started really comming down. After a 30min rest we tore down the tents and headed back to Muir. We re-grouped at Muir and headed down to Paradise.

 

We arrived back at paradise at about 2pm very tired but happy to be out of the bad weather.

 

All in all a great trip but we will be a lot more wary of upper level lows from here on. Happy climbing!

[JumboJim]

We were up there this weekend. It started clear on Saturday night / Sunday evening, but when we got around 12,000'-13,000' everything hit the fan. Everyone climbing turned around at the same time. We were seeing at least 60mph winds with ice around Ingraham flats. It was absolutely brutal. The steps my ropemate took in front of me were completely filled in by blown snow and ice by the time I walked over them 10 seconds later.

 

We'd probably be dead without the wands placed by the guides. Even then, we had to have a person on one end of the rope team stand at one wand and send the other end out to look for the next wand in crevassed terrain. Not fun. At one point we just had to stand still for about 15 minutes as extremely high winds and flying ice made it very painful to stand any way except with your back to the wind.

 

I don't think any parties summited this weekend, except for one or two at the most.

[Eric Anderson]

Congrats on your summit in bad conditions!

 

Jim, which group were you with? We were a party of six, arrive to the flats Friday afternoon. We left Saturday around 1pm after a stormy night with a forecast of pretty nasty stuff coming that evening.

[selkirk]

How was the Cleaver? Still snowpack or is the rock coming through?

 

Hoping to head up next weekend, weather permitting of course!

TIA

[Kaskadekid]

Cleaver was in great shape! A few exposed rocks at botton but 500ft off Ingraham glacier, it was continuous snow surface. Route is in great shape all the way to the summit!