Well, here it is! My first go at Mt. Rainier. What an awesome trip! We didn’t manage to summit, but came pretty damn close, at 13200ft. Still, fantastic experience, great company, and beautiful sights! Here’s the play by play for this five day trip up the Emmons Glacier route.

Day 1 - Hike To Glacier Basin Campground

The plan for the first day was straightforward. Simply hike up to the Glacier Basin camp, at roughly 6000ft elevation. This was a very short hike, and the whole thing was well below the snow line. Every day starts with circling up around the topographic map, and getting a handle on the route.

After a fairly simple and uneventful hike during an overcast day, we got to camp, set up our tents, learned to use the stoves, and went to bed.

There was a sign about bear activity, and it was not uncommon to encounter deer, just hanging out on the trail. The one amusing feature about the camp site were the toilets. Following the signs, and hiking off on the toilet trail for a couple of minutes, we encounter the glacier basin bathroom: Two toilet seats, prominently displayed on a platform. Note the stack of leaves that were left on one side of one of the seats. Somebody forgot to bring toilet paper. :)

Day 2 - Hike To High Camp At Emmons Flats

Upon waking up to a beautiful clear day, we could finally see the mountain from the camp site.

That’s not the real summit in that picture, but merely Liberty Cap. The true summit is hidden from view at this point.

The goal for this day’s hike was to ascend to ~9600ft, and ideally establish high camp on Emmons Flats. The Emmons Glacier is the largest glacier on the mountain (by area), and summit day will consist of climbing Mt. Rainier via this glacier. High camp is to be established on a common flat campground area on Emmons, about half an hour past Camp Schurman. Since Emmons is very heavily crevassed at lower elevations, our route involved climbing up the Interglacier, a smaller glacier that sits in a “bowl” between Emmons and Winthrop glaciers.

Behold, the bottom of the Interglacier!

What appears to be the top in the above picture is just a bench. Interglacier goes on for a while. The bulk of the effort put in this day was in climbing this thing. Since this is glacier travel, we had to rope up. Once ready, the rope teams proceeded to climb to the top.

After a few hours of that, we found ourselves on the edge of the “bowl” containing Interglacier, and with some amazing views. To our left, we could see the lower part of Emmons Glacier.

And of course, the rest of the mountain, looming in the distance.

Here are our fearless guides. From left to right: Seth, Drew, and Glen.

After taking in the sights, we proceeded down a steep, rocky trail, to the Emmons Glacier, and moved on up to Camp Schurman, where the guides checked in with the ranger to see if we can continue to Emmons Flats.

From here, we made the final push of the day: The additional 600ft it takes to get to Emmons Flats, where we proceeded to setup our high camp.

The rest of the evening was spent enjoying dinner, while watching the breathtaking cloud cover in the sunset.

Day 3 - Snow School and Summit Prep

This third day is meant to be a bit more relaxing, though we still had a lot to do. We went through various footwork drills, self arrest, and team arrest (which is when you have to arrest a fall for someone else on your rope team). Before turning in for the day, we got our rope and gear prepped, for a quick setup when we start heading for the summit.

All of our main meals have consisted of either granola/oatmeal (breakfast) or quinoa (dinner). Needless to say, all cooked meals were laxatives hehe. We were fairly regular on this day, so it’s good that as part of setting up camp, we had built a bathroom, with a privacy wall and everything.

Bedtime was around 3pm. We wake up for the summit run at 9pm!!

Day 4 - Summit Attempt

This technically starts late on day 3. We woke up at 9pm, had some food, took care of any personal needs, and roped right up. We were moving up the mountain by 10:30pm.

After the initial difficult part (warming up during the first hour or so), I felt great. We climbed through the entire night, and while I was certainly pushing myself, it didn’t feel like it was beyond my limits to any degree. I was ready for this both physically and mentally. The scary dark steep slope effect didn’t bother me, since I knew exactly what to expect after having put myself through Mt. Shasta a few months back.

Unfortunately, not everyone fared quite this well. Some people haven’t had the chance to do a night climb, and others were simply unprepared physically. There was constant tugging at the back of my rope, with people asking us to slow down, even though we were already going at pretty much the minimum acceptable speed. The problem with going slowly is that other rope teams then want to pass you, and it takes a LONG time for a team of four to pass another team. We wasted a lot of time just standing still, waiting for other groups to go around. Moving very slowly tends to snowball into long, unnecessary delays.

After many hours of climbing, when the sun was starting to come up, the lead guide announced that we would have to turn back. At the pace our three rope teams were going, we would be reaching camp in the early evening, which means the sun will have hit the snow bridges over the crevasses for long enough to make them dangerous. Even with the early withdrawal, my leg punched through one of them. So, it was decided we’d push up to just below the bergschrund (crevasse where the glacier starts to separate from the top), and use that as our high vantage point.

While very disappointed about not being able to push all the way to the summit, this arrangement allowed us to enjoy the most beautiful sunrise ever, from about 13200ft. 1400ft short of the summit.

After taking this all in, we began to descend back towards camp. Descent was slow-going, for reasons similar to those mentioned earlier. It was also very beautiful. There’s something about looking down into a deep crevasse. It wasn’t the kind of terrain where one can just take out one’s camera, so no photos. Next time, I’ll have a GoPro or equivalent to capture some of those moments.

Sometime in the very early afternoon, we made it back to camp. We were all incredibly tired, and wanted nothing more than to pass out in our tents. As I settled in, lied down, and started to relax, my tent mate screamed, “MOUSE MOUSE!!!” It turns out some kind of a mouse had gotten into our tent, and was running around! So much for passing out and relaxing! The mouse kept running around the tent, and under our sleeping mats. We had to be careful not to squash it. Eventually, we managed to get it to run outside.

After all this commotion, we got some rest, woke up for dinner (and pooping), and got back to sleep. We all slept like logs that night.

Day 5 - Descent To Trailhead

On the final day, we packed up our belongings and headed all the way back down the way we came.

I had taped up a pinky toe blister, which was acting up all throughout the hike (especially once off the snow), so it was a bit of a painful descent, but after clearing the snow, we made some good headway.

A final look back onto the mountain. From this vantage point, it looks like we made it really far. Next time, we’ll hit the summit!

See the full album.