First Rainier Ski Trip of the Season

With the first days of December, a record setting high pressure system settled over the Pacific Northwest and promised up to a week or more of good weather (and smog in the lowlands). My brother Alex and I decided to take advantage of the good weather and get in our first ski trip of the season to Camp Muir.

On Saturday December 3, we started out at 6 AM, arriving at the mountain 9:30. When we got to the parking lot we realized there were quite a few other people with the same idea. From the parking lot to just below Panorama Point we set a pretty good pace. But as we looked up the climb to Panorama Point it was clear all the other skiers were struggling. At first the climb was easy. Alex stated that he was going to try and skin all the was up. A couple minutes later Alex, who was ahead of me, yelled back to me to put on my ski crampons. A minute later he was hiking with skis over his shoulder. As I approached the area where he had given up skinning I thought I might be able to make it with my ski crampons, and I probably could have, but it would have been a long way to slide down if the crampons didn't hold, so following my brothers example, I put the skis over my shoulder and headed up hill.

After the climb up to and above Panorama Point, the skinning went well up to about 8,000' where the travel required navigating patches of ice with strong gusts of wind coming from all different directions. A couple of the gusts were strong enough that I had to stop and make sure I was well balanced against the wind. Around 8,800' the wind was just too strong, and most of the downhill skiers had warned us that it was extremely icy higher up, and most all other uphill skiers had turned around. So at that point Alex and I decided to turn around. So with high winds, and on an inch of snow on top of blue ice we carefully transitioned and headed down.

Here our GPS tracks from the day's adventure.

Navigating Panorama Point on the downhill turned out to be not as bad as going up. The skiing down was not great, but overall it was a fun trip.

Trying to impress 12 year olds

Being the slave to social media that I am, I have a YouTube account. I really don’t do too much with that account; I created it out of curiosity more so than anything else. However, I do upload the occasional video that I put together.

In 2009 my brother and I went up to Alpental on opening day. I brought my helmet camera and captured some POV footage of us skiing and made a stupid little video with that footage. I really didn’t imagine anyone other than my brother and I watching this, but I did upload it to YouTube and make it publicly visible.

Well, nearly 2 years after putting together this video, it looks like someone else has watched my video. I guess he didn’t care for it, but his comment is pretty awesome!

Im 12 and i did that run when i was 11 so do somthing a little harder

Thank you, The Gocarter for your constructive criticism. I will make a point of trying to capture some footage of me hucking cliffs in the Alpental BC during the 2011/12 season, or maybe ski Mount Rainier or Baker. Either way, I will strive ski runs harder than what an 11 year old can easily ski.

2009 Hike on Mount Rainier to Camp Muir

Mount Rainier is the highest peak in the state of Washington and a National Park. Every year thousands of people climb it. Although I have always wanted to climb the mountain, it is a fairly large commitment in time (conditioning for the trip) and money (guide service + equipment), so I set a goal that is a fair bit more attainable: hiking to Camp Muir. Camp Muir is the base camp for most climbers of Mount Rainier, and at just above 10,000’ it is the highest point you can hike on the mountain without a climbing permit.

Every year I say I’m going to hike Mount Rainier to Camp Muir, but in the past ten years I have only done this trip 3 times (2003, 2006 and again this year). This year I brought my wife, her sister and husband (who hiked it with me in 2006). In the past we would get up at 3 a.m. drive to Paradise on Mount Rainier at 5,400’, and start hiking hopefully by 7 a.m. but usually closer to 8 a.m.. This year to avoid the super early wake up, and hopefully get an earlier start we stayed at the National Park Inn; a lodge inside the park 8 miles from Paradise at Longmire.

Unfortunately a late wake up and the lure of a hot breakfast at the Longmire lodge pushed our start time on the hike to 8:30 a.m.. Lack of snow meant the path up the mountain was going to be very icy or very rocky. Finally the approach to Camp Muir involved negotiating numerous crevasses, further slowing us down. In the end the hike took us 8 ½ hours, combined with one hour spent at Camp Muir and a wrong turn on the way down, the 9+ mile round trip was 9 ½ hours.

The hike follows excellent trails for the first 2 ½ miles. Then the trails promptly ends at an area called the Muir Snow field. There you begin your travel on snow following a compass heading and other people’s tracks. Before long the snowfield ends and the glaciers begin. Our group lacked crampons so we opted to travel on the rock fields as much as possible rather than travel on the steep icy glaciers. (In 2003 I had a friend slip on the glaciers while coming down. He slid several hundred feet before coming to a stop. The rough ice ripped up his leg, and the bacteria on the glaciers caused him to get a rather nasty infection in the wound).

Despite the long day the trip was well worth it. Our long hike was rewarded with amazing views of Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens and in the distance Mount Hood in Oregon.