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.

What's the Big Picture?

So it's been over 8 months since I've sat down to write anything here. But I suppose that's because I've been busy working on some changes. Last year the big change was massively increase the amount I commuted by bike. This year I decided to kick it up a notch when I realized that it would be my last full year before I turned 40. So I created a kind of 1/2 bucket list (a list of things to do when you're around 1/2 way to the bucket kicking!?). The list went something like this:

1. I was not going to say "no" to any reasonable fun request of my time (my brother always goes on these amazing ski adventures, and I always say, "no, I probably shouldn't go").
2. I would get myself in shape (I've been saying that for over 10 years).
3. I would climb Mt. Rainier.

I kicked off the first item on my list by taking 2 amazing ski trips to Canada. First with a co-worker who invited me for several days of cat-skiing in the Monashee Mountains. Next was a week of skiing in the Selkirk Mountains with my brother; first at Revelstoke, then at Valhalla Mountain Touring.

The next two items on my list were sort of combined. In order to climb Mt. Rainier I would need to get in shape. I started running and hiking as much as my schedule allowed. In May I did my first running race since well before my daughters were born, the UW Bothell 5K. In June I did the Seattle Rock & Roll 1/2 Marathon. At the end of June I made an attempt at climbing Mt. Baker in one day, but fell short of the summit by 1,000 feet. When July rolled around, I thought I was ready for Mt Rainier; I summit-ed, but it kicked my butt. On Sunday I go for the next big step in getting in shape, and I run my first marathon in Portland Oregon. When all is said and done, a guy who couldn't run a mile to catch a bus a little over a year ago, will have run 2 full marathons and 3 1/2 marathons in the span of a year.

So what's this all about anyways? I'm in better shape than I've been in years (or ever), I've found a new activity that I enjoy (running), but now what? What does it all lead to? What does it all ultimately amount to? Running a marathon and climbing Mt Rainier were things that seemed well out my grasp a couple years ago, but I did it (or after Sunday I will have). I know it sounds corny, but I suppose what it all means is that I have proven to myself I can accomplish anything I set out to do. So maybe it's time to set the bar a bit higher...

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.

The Legend of Blue Ribbon Expeditions (Part 3)

Yah, I know, I skipped part 2. I'm working on it. There seems to be some gaps in my memory of that particular trip.

However, to avoid the same problem for part 3, I decided to just video tape the event...

The Legend of Blue Ribbon Expeditions (Part 1)

Twelve years ago my good buddy Doug and I were at Northwest Folklife festival sitting in a beer garden contemplating our larger plans for the weekend. As fun as the folk life festival can be, we decided we needed to kick things up a notch. It was Friday after a long work week, and another weekend drinking beer just wouldn’t cut it. In those days Doug and I would often embark on ill-planned unsafe crazy adventures with the single goal of having stories to tell people on Monday (Doug still does this). Our plan: see if we could drive to the California border and still be back in time for work on Monday. ROAD TRIP! (Gas prices weren’t so high in 1996).

By 10 PM we had packed Doug’s tiny 88 Subaru hatchback, filled it up with gas, and we were off.

Sixty miles later as we were passing though Olympia and becoming terribly aware of how unrealistic our original goal was. Mid trip we changed our plans to something that seemed much more sensible: climb Mount Hood. A slight change in route and we were headed to Mount Hood.

By 2 AM we were hopeless lost on a very foggy road somewhere on what we believed to be the side of Mount Hood. The fog was so thick that Doug and I had the car doors open so that we could confirm where the stripes were on the road. We were also quickly getting to the point of not-awake-enough-to-be-driving head bob. Before something really bad happened Doug found a place that looked safe to pull off of the road, he pulled over to sleep (did I mention how small his Subaru was?). I opted to sleep in a sleeping bag inside a bivvy sack near the car. Doug was happy sleeping in the car (or just too tired to get out of it).

At 8 AM the next morning I awoke to find that it had rained a fair bit and I was now sleeping in a large puddle; while Doug on the other hand was in severe pain from managing to sleep in positions that would make any yoga master impressed. The spot we had picked to stop was not more than 100 yards from the Timberline Lodge parking lot. Despite wetness and extreme bodily discomfort the need for food was our highest priority so we headed off and eventually found a small convenience store where we loaded up on junk food. Then it was off to Timberline lodge (the starting point for our climb up the south route up Mount Hood). At 9 AM, with no crampons, no rope, no safety gear, and completely neglecting to register our summit attempt, we start up the mountain along Palmer glacier. As we headed up we notice that the only other climbers we see are coming down; actually they’re all just about down at the bottom of the hill. This would be a quick climb we thought; it didn’t dawn on us that most climbers had started up at 4 AM!

Mount Hood is known for very unpredictable weather, but we were lucky. The sun was shining, it was warm and so we hiked on. The hiking trail took us along the perimeter of the ski area and it was depressing watching all the people taking the chair lift up half the distance that we had to hike; but we opted not to use the chairlift. It wasn’t that Doug and I were trying to be purist and avoid mechanical aid in climbing the mountain; rather we were too cheap to buy a lift ticket for just one ride.

Half way up the ski area is the Silcox Hut which was a nice stopping point for lunch. We pathetically hiked across the ski area into the hut and got a couple of bowls of chili and continued on. After a long slog we reached Crater Rock and eventually found ourselves crossing Hogsback; the ridge that must be crossed to reach the summit. Hogsback is verry narrow and stretches a fair distance dropping on either side into two of the volcanoes fumaroles. At the end of Hogsback is the infamous bergschrund that swallowed up and killed three climbers on May 30, 2002 (and led to a dramatic televised crash of the rescue helicopter). The real danger of the bergschrund was unknown to us, since it was snow covered. But to be safe I had Doug go first. (I remember back to my mocking of the climbers we had seen earlier in the day who had been roped up).

We eventually reached the summit around 3 PM, enjoyed the view. We were completely spent nothing left to give, and we still had to go back down the mountain. Then suddenly Doug thought it necessary to get naked, something about being on top of a mountain and the feeling of freedom. The view suddenly became a lot less attractive; enough so to get me back on to my feet and begin my descent.

As I headed down I could see Timberline Lodge was off in the distance, the size of a pin point. I started to realize the first reason that everyone else had started up at 4 AM. All the other climbers we had seen returning were able to gently glissade down the mountain in still frozen snow. The retuning climbers had formed a toboggan like path. However, by the time we were got around to descending the snow was complete mush from the day’s warm sun. Attempting to use the glissade path only succeeded in getting by butt wet. I tried to use my arms to get my body to slide, but it didn't help, so I walked. With most every step, my legs sunk knee deep in soft wet snow. Post holing our way down the slope we reached the top of the chair lift only to witness it get shut down for the day.

Eventually Doug and I did reach the car at about 8 PM. We packed up and began the drive home. We made it all of 15 minutes out of the parking lot before we decide we needed to find a place to sleep for the night and there was no way I was going to sleep on the ground or in Doug’s car again (ever!).

We found relatively affordable lodging in the nearby town of Government camp. After dinner, and a good night of sleeping on an actual bed I awoke to find the other reason that hikers start up the mountain at 4 AM. My face was stuck to my pillow. It turns out that a single application of SPF 8 suntan lotion is not enough sun protection when you spend 11 hours in the sun hiking on glacier, between 6,000 and 11,245 feet elevation. My face was beyond burnt, it was actually purple and oozing something.

Despite a week of suffering from painful radiation burns, we did have fun on that trip, but it would be nearly eight years before an attempt was made to repeat the trip…