Mt. Rainier Gear - What do you think?

[DPS]

Here is a link to an article on SP.com I wrote that you might also find useful: http://www.summitpost.org/so-you-want-to-climb-mt-rainier/507227

[SeanO]

Great article, DPS, thanks for writing it up. I think I'll refer people to this article when they ask general questions about Rainier.

[DPS]

Great article, DPS, thanks for writing it up. I think I'll refer people to this article when they ask general questions about Rainier.

Thanks for the positive feedback. I wrote it to answer the questions that seemed to come up repeatedly.

[jmk]

DPS you should expand into a whole " so you want to climb" series you could do one for each mountain you know

[To_The_Top]

The SP article is great including training on going down--many accidents happen coming down and you use different muscles than while going up, which most train heavily. Another good point is the hydration and nutrition, eat/drink things that go down well because while up on the mountain it can be a chore and few things sound good. Beef jerky or something salty is good after a lot of exertion. Last point is the mountain creates it's own weather, it can be sunny and 70 in Seattle and crazy weather on Rainier as fronts seem to hit there first.

[sobo]

To some extent I find this, now 7 page thread...

Hey Allen, it's only three pages at this point. You need to reset your posts per page view to the default of 25 instead of 10.

It's the only way to win in the snag the game.

 

And oh yeah, DPS's article in SP is spot on. Nice work, Dan!

[ScaredSilly]

No way, I can only handle 10 posts at a time otherwise my brain will explode.

 

That said, take my comments with a grain of salt. There is lots of good info, I just thought it humorous when I saw the page count and thought about my first trip to Rainier - just too many choices. Now where are my wool mittens???

 

 

Oh, about Mt. Washington and testing things out, if it was a good enough for Washburn, Bates, and Houston, it should be good enough for the rest of ya

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Well said DPS - The closest thing to Mt. Rainier we have here in the Northeast is Mt. Washington (New Hampshire) which gains 4200 feet in about 4 miles. This has a whole different set of challenges and although it can be a good training ground for mountaineering in general it's completely different than what we will encounter in July.

 

Thanks again to everyone for their help!

 

I understand that Mt. Washington can be pretty darn fierce in the Winter. If you've been up there in cold temps, you've probably seen worse than you'd see on Rainier in July (prime time for Rainier - best chance of good conditions).

 

[DPS]

DPS you should expand into a whole " so you want to climb" series you could do one for each mountain you know

Here is a generic article I wrote about getting into alpinism: http://www.summitpost.org/alpinism-101-an-introduction/756518

[ADKMan]

I understand that Mt. Washington can be pretty darn fierce in the Winter. If you've been up there in cold temps, you've probably seen worse than you'd see on Rainier in July (prime time for Rainier - best chance of good conditions).

 

We have been up Mt. Washington and Mt. Marcy (New York) in the winter, winds can get fierce, whiteout conditions are common. The basic difference with Mt. Rainier is the glacier travel and altitude. Also, generally Washington / Marcy are 8 +/ - hour day trips not multi day climbs. I'm sure this experience will come in handy in July though.

[sobo]

Yeah, fer sure Mt. Washington can be a bitch in winter. Me and Frank went ice climbing there back in college, and what started out as a beautiful Christmas break day in the morning had totally gone to shit by the time we finished climbing for the day. I think the last route we did that day was Odell's, and when we topped out on the Alpine Gardens, we were almost blown back down the freak'n route.

 

Not only that, it was total whiteout and about 20 below 0. We found our way to the descent trail by accidentally locating the first cairn (stumbled into it in the whiteness), then "swinging leads" on an arc at the end of the rope until the leader found the next cairn, while being "anchored" by the second at the last cairn so the leader wouldn't wander too far past the cairn. Lather, rinse, repeat, until we found the top of the Lion's Slide (Lion's Head?? Lion something) descent route back down to Tuckerman's trail. Smart thinking whoever set up those cairns at 150-foot intervals...

 

Very interesting experience to have taken our crampons off once reaching the Alpine Gardens, only to be blown across the frozen tarns and lakelets up there by the gale force wind like an out of control figure skater. Ended up putting the damned things back on...

 

Yeah, 5K is right - if you've experienced severe winter weather on Mt. Washington, then you won't find anything worse on Rainier in July. Mebbe just as bad, but not worse...

[Buckaroo]

Probably a good idea if you are getting on Rainier is to know how to dig and maintain a snow cave. Four people died this January, 2 were going to Muir and 2 to the summit. They might have lived if they had their snow cave skills down. Granted that was winter but sometimes there's not much difference.

 

You can take a shovel but if you don't have one you can dig with a cook pot.

[DPS]

Four people died this January, 2 were going to Muir and 2 to the summit. They might have lived if they had their snow cave skills down.

That's pretty speculative to assume the hikers/climbers did not know how to dig a snow cave. It may be that they dug great snow caves and are still there.

 

Granted that was winter but sometimes there's not much difference.

 

 

I'd say there is a huge difference between mid winter and mid July, having climbed Rainier multiple times during both periods.

Edited March 29, 2012 by DPS

[JasonG]

Agreed Dan. My experiences with bad weather in January and July on Rainier are very, very different. Summer "storms" are miserable, but winter storms are downright terrifying.

[Buckaroo]

I've spent time in snow caves on Rainier in winter. The longest was 5 days at 10K. The hardest part is maintaining air holes through the night hours. When the snow is coming down hard you have to clear it about every one to two hours. It's tough getting up at that interval throughout the night, you better have a good alarm. I was solo, it's probably easier with a team where you can do shifts.

 

Granted it is conjecture to say whether the recent victims dug adequate snow caves but it seems quite frequently people going to Muir get killed in a snow storm and they don't dig snow caves and it's usually during the normal climbing season. So if they dug snow caves why would they still not be alive? Avalanche maybe.

 

I would guess that more people have died from storms during the regular climbing season than have in winter. Granted less are climbing in winter but summer is still not something to be trifled with.

[Buckaroo]

I remember one year there was a team of 3 that climbed Liberty ridge and were hit by a storm near the top after summiting. They dug a small snow cave but then one of the party stepped through the roof. I seem to remember only one of them survived. Not sure if it was summer but it def was not winter.

 

One of the early deaths on Rainier was on the Emmons. Delmar Fadden was found at 13,000'. Victim of a fall, found with one crampon missing and the other half off. Another crampon related fatality on the Emmons involved a climbing ranger who had borrowed some crampons and one of them came off, which led to a fall. A front had come in and turned the upper 2,000' into hard alpine ice which contributed to the crampon failure.

 

You want a really bomber fit and the points need to be sharp.

[DPS]

I'm guessing that was spring, as most Lib Ridge Ascents occur May-June.

[JasonG]

Yes, it was May of 2002. I climbed Liberty Ridge a couple days later as they were helicoptering the bodies off. It was a sobering reminder. If I remember right, after the cave collapsed two of the three died after wandering and falling into a crevasse.

[DPS]

Big difference in weather after July 4th vs May-June.

[Ovr40]

Here is another recommendation to bring the helmet. I have seen baseball sized rocks come off the exposed rock near the top of the interglacier. This was on the north side of the glacier (right side when facing uphill). They build up a lot of speed quickly.

[selkirk]

Lots of shit falls from the sky climbing. Sometimes that shit's people, sometimes that's even you. Hell even dropped water bottle could pick up some good speed on those slopes.

 

Weight is not a good reason not to wear a helmet IMHO.

[Dchromey]

Just looking for some help about rope. 8mm should be good I'm just looking for some rope that doesn't weigh a lot. You think 45-50m rope would be good enough?

[Nevtrik]

We went up to Rainier twice in Aug of 2011 and 2012, it was warmer than in Jul I guess and there were 3 of us. Here is the gear list anyways, maybe you'll find something useful. I would keep storm pants and warm bottoms, but leave the softshell pants at home. You don't have a good warm puffy it seems, so two lighter probably make sense..

 

Individual checklist:

 

1. Warm cloths (it will be very cold on the top, make sure you have very good gloves system: I used three pairs last year: light liners for hiking, warm mountaineering/skiing gloves above and a mittens hardshell above, make sure you have really warm socks with liners)

2. Ice axe with a long sling securely attached to the harness

3. Crampons

4. Harness

5. Helmet

6. Three prusiks (5mm)

7. Belay device

8. At least 3 more locking biners (one for ATC, 1 for prusik, 1 just in case)

9. Couple of slings attached to biners

10. Sleeping bag

11. Sleeping pad (inflatable termarest works better if we'll have to sleep on the ice)

12. Head lamp and additional set of batteries

13. Food for good dinner and light breakfast: avoid anything fried, fatty, any kind of beans, fruits or vegetables (potatoes are ok ) .

Prefer carbs with low glycemic index (pasta, rice - lots of freeze dried options available).

14. Water bottles or camelbak (camelbak is better to avoid frequent stops, bottles are still very useful to cool down the water before filling camelbak)

15. Snacks to have on the way (gels, cliff shot blocks, energy bars etc) that can be eaten without stops

16. Spoon

17. Hiking poles

18. Lipstick with high SPF rate

19. Glacier sunglasses

20. Ear plugs (sleeping at the camp Muir/Shurman can be impossible during high season)

 

 

 

Group (weight to be divided between all members):

1. 2 jet boils, we will need to melt snow

2. Fuel for jet boil (two NEW medium/small size jars)

3. Bleach drops to purify water

4. 30 meters glacier rope

5. One tent

6. GPS and additional set of batteries

7. Cell phone

8. Medical kit (climbing tape, painkillers)

9. Knife

10. Toilet paper

11. Goggles

12. Tea bags

13. Two pickets with sling and two biners (at least one must be locking)

14. Ice screws

15. Sunscreen with high SPF rate

27. Pulleys

20. Tiblocks