If you grew up in Seattle or have ever visited you know how prominent Mt. Rainier is from everywhere. You catch glimpses of it on I-5, off Lake Washington, from Kerry Park, from the Ferry, the stadiums, the top of other mountains, the UW, bike paths around town, our capitol of Olympia and if you are lucky on a flight in or out of Sea-tac Airport! It is this beautiful mountain that always draws your attention. It is basically the epitome of the Pacific Northwest. Mt. Rainier or Mt. Tahoma (original name given by the Puyallup meaning ¨Supreme Mountain¨) rises to 14,411 feet/4,392 meters in altitude and stands alone and striking against the landscape with it´s white glaciated peak. (Tahoma story)

I´ve seen Mt. Rainier basically my whole life and have always wondered what it is like at the top. To visit Mt. Rainier National Park alone is spectacular but what is on top has always been unknown to me. One day I knew I would find out though.

These last few years I started training for this day.

I started getting really into mountaineering in early 2022 and for several years I trained hoping my friend could lead me up to the summit but each year she was too busy. In 2021 I climbed Mt. St. Helens, then in 2022 I climbed Mt. Adams and Cotopaxi (Ecuador). This year (2023) I decided not to wait any longer! I signed up with KAF Adventures for it´s charity climb of Rainier.

Below are some training photos:

The week before my Mt. Rainier summit bid I felt very lackadaisical. I was really burned out on all the training I’d put in since May. I was eating every two hours on days I wasn’t too lazy to eat and it was never enough food, I was going the bathroom more frequently and pretty darn tired. I thought something might be wrong with me, hell I almost went to urgent care to double check! In addition to that I was a bit worried, the weather wasn’t looking great at all for our Tuesday July 25th summit bid day. All this had any excitement for this huge climb I’d been planning years for at a real low level. Not to mention up until the last week it hadn’t really dawned on me the fact that I’d be climbing over 9000 feet into thin air! It all started feeling a bit hard and rough all of a sudden. ” What had I signed up for? Mt. Rainier is massive!” 

I was so ready to just be done with it! I didn’t do too much exercise this last week, I was in taper mode, I even got a massage last minute because the last hard training the weekend before left my IT band (side of thigh by the knee on up) a bit tight. Luckily toward the end of the week all the laziness was paying off and I was a teeny tiny bit more excited although mostly worried about the weather which had 45 mph winds and precipitation forecasted for the summit in late July! I’d tried climbing Mt. St. Helens with over 30 mph winds and knew anything over 30 was basically a non summit so this put spirits low for any summit success. 

The adventure started Sunday, July 23. It was a sunny morning with the mountain out for the drive over to Enumclaw.

We would have 3 nights on Mt. Rainier. Our route was from the Sunrise entrance and we would climb the Emmons/Winthrop Glacier route. The more common route is the Disappointment Cleaver (DC) route from Paradise via Camp Muir so I was happy knowing we were on a lesser traveled route yet still a good beginner route! Emmons is a bit longer of a route than DC especially later in the summer as the crevasses open up more due to all the warm weather (especially this year)! 

From Enumclaw we caravanned/carpooled into the park and met up at the White River Campground. Last year I camped here with a friend for the first time ever so I was familiar with the location and trails so that was a nice plus. It would later be fun to spot out these from higher up on the mountain. Once parked we repacked our bags making sure we weren’t missing any crucial items like sunglasses, crampons, boots, helmet, etc. and added group gear to our bags (such as tents, kitchen items, food and more) before heading out. One of the girls in the group swears mountaineering is just packing and repacking your gear…ha ha and we definitely did that a multitude of times after this first round.

We were 8 mountaineers from around the US and 3 guides. Four in the group I already knew from a previous training on Mt. Baker the month before so that was comforting. I was also excited knowing we were a group of 5 women in a pretty male dominant activity. Let’s show the world ladies do this too!!!

Day one our plan was to hike about 6 miles to Camp Curtis, our first camp.

It was basically like all my other big trainings, 6 miles with about 4500 ft of elevation gain with a river crossing, scrambling and beauty all around. What surprised me is how long it took us to get there. We left at 1 pm and arrived by 8 pm. It was sunny and views were great as we ascended getting closer and closer to Rainier. It was great to reminisce while spotting Sunrise and the trails I’d done the year before with a friend, they were now tiny trails and recognizable areas like the fremont fire lookout from 8000 feet and above Time wore on the group and soon everyone was wondering where Camp Curtis was because we were very ready to drop our 40-50 lb bags and set up for the night. 

Basically by the time we reached Camp Curtis it was almost dark so we set up tents as quickly as we could. Due to the weather predictions we were now all in 4 season tents which meant 4 girls in one tent (The North Face Taj-E) instead of the two person or 3 person tents we thought we might be using. The tent took forever to get set up because it was new to everyone, wind had already picked up and the guides were running around helping the other two tent setups and cooking dinner at the same time. Camp Curtis being on a ridge of the mountain also made it super hard to find space for a 4 person tent with vestibule (part outside the door for storage, putting shoes on, etc.). In fact, we skipped putting the vestibule on because there was no space for it and instead tucked it under the tent placing rocks on it and hoping the wind wouldn´t get at it too much or the rocks rip it. This night was very windy (around 40 mph gusts) and we got blasted by it all night. I of course took the corner which took the brunt of the wind all night…the tent poles hit me in the head so I put a jacket there to keep it from hurting me and the tent whipped at me from the side so I put an extra mat there as a buffer instead of underneath like it should be. We all survived none the less and we had a beautiful sunrise and some calm before the real storm was supposed to float on in!

Day one was long but day two would be short.

We were descending for the first time onto the Emmons Glacier and I was pretty excited about this! The only downside for some was the sketchy scramble to get on it since the snow was all gone. We’d only be climbing up about 1000 vertical feet to base camp at Camp Schurman. Our permit had us up on the glacier about 200 ft higher than the actual camp which meant no nice toilet unless we roped up and climbed down in crampons but it was sweet as we were the only group up there! Can you tell by now that I prefer less people around when in the mountains…it is truly the best!

Once we arrived at Camp Scherman we rested, explored and made use of what we would call a luxury toilet….still just a hole in the ground but this time with a conveyor belt, sanitizer and the most important, a door…before continuing the last 20 minutes to the Upper Camp at Camp Scherman. By the way bathrooms at Upper Camp were anywhere on snow for number 1 and number 2 is usually done into a blue bag (that you hike out with), we had them but one guide brought a bucket so we set up a communal poo area with one bag and committed to a no hovering rule and it allowed for amazing and calming views while you did your business ;)! One member of the group couldn’t go on the mountain even though they tried so they would wait to rope up and go down to the luxury toilet, then finally they did it the last day…almost more of an achievement than the actual summit ha ha.

Camping on snow now, this meant we had to make a platform for the tents which requires a lot of shoveling, picking with ice axes and moving snow around to create a flat surface big enough for the tent and it´s vestibules. Again with the biggest tent on the team this meant it was going to take some time. Sure enough about 10 minutes after arriving to the day´s destination that impending storm showed up! The storm was relentless with gusts of winds that sent at least one thing flying away and a downpour of rain which got everyone soaked all while we were building platforms. We had to take turns to move bags to keep them dry, change into rain gear, move the sharps (crampons, ice axes, trekking poles, etc) all while building platforms and setting up our tents. Thankfully having set the tent up the night before we now knew where each parts of the tent went so although our platform took the longest we finished setting up the tent around the same time others had theirs ready.

Finally all set up we put the bags in the tent and each sat on our tiny sit mats inside hoping the tent would dry out without sun ha. We were like this for most of the day 4 women mountaineers with their boots off, clothes hanging everywhere inside to dry, each sitting on a tiny mat trying to stay warm and avoid accumulating puddles and the soaking wet everything around us. I don´t recall exactly but many hours later we spread our sleeping mats out but I got first choice on location because I suffered the most the night before…woo! Nothing was perfect but I finally got decent sleep. I don´t recall the wind at night but everyone else in the tent seemed to think it was strong and that the guides might call off the summit attempt.

Day three was summit attempt day!

Weather was still iffy but our guides had hope for an attempt later in the morning. It was no longer 1 am wake up but instead a 5 am wake up. My tent mates were surprised they even woke us up because they heard the winds still howling but at 5 am we got up and got ready to go…this took the group 2 hours and breakfast was served to us in bed basically (inside the vestibule) so we’d stay warm. The winds seemed calmer until the exact moment we were about to rope up and leave. Now, wind gusts were pushing us around even with our crampons on. The guides let this happen for about 10 minutes then canceled the attempt! We were told to take off all sharps and head to our tents and rest. Now this normally would be the end of the summit bid for most guided trips with a company but our guides decided we would try again at 10 pm! This charity climb only happens once a year so our guides were really trying to make it happen and since we had one last night of our permit at camp we could use it for the attempt. Instead of the planned rest night this change of hour for the summit bid meant we would go up, come back to camp only to pack up and then head all the way out in one push! This is typical for most summit attempts but not on our itinerary nor much of a thought in our heads.

Resting all day in the tent was hard. That is a long time for the mind to wait! Even harder was when a group passed by at 11 am headed for their summit attempt! I didn´t get much sleep during the day but I know I got some when the other ladies in my tent disappeared for a few hours to relax near the luxury toilet and do some helipad stretching lol. Yep, I had the whole 4 person tent to myself so while they were gone I played goldilocks and tried all their sleeping bags to find the warmest one lol…I stretched out across all bags and decided our Arizona friend had the warmest! Not that I needed warmth, it was probably 80 degrees in the tent, I had all the doors and vents open to get a chill breeze off the ice and had changed into shorts but still. I napped a bit more in the evening but otherwise was awake. Dinner was served in the tent again, I was groggy but realized it was time to get ready!

When the hour approached we roped up yet again for our second try for the summit!

I was with one guide and the only guy from my Mt. Baker climb. I felt comfortable with that, to me we seemed like a good fit pace wise. I had been apprehensive the whole trip because besides weather one never knows if someone in your team might get altitude sickness which would cause the whole rope team to turn back. Everyone was eager to know who would be on their rope team and I thought it would be awesome to be with the same two girls from the Mt. Baker climb. I didn’t expect my team situation though as I didn’t think our guides would separate the couple in our group; the guy has always roped up with his wife.

We set off in the dark, our headlamps lit just enough ahead of us to follow the boot path our guide was setting staring for hours directly in front at the 35 foot long rope connecting each mountaineer and ensuring it had just the right amount of slack. Patrick, our guide led me and Martin up first while the other guides followed each with their 3 mountaineers. It is recommended to have 3-4 on each rope team just in case of a fall on the team.

Every hour we took a short 10 minute break to eat, drink and do as needed. The first break I fixed my shoes as they were not tight enough and causing more friction that normal. I had bandages on my heels already because it is a known hot spot of blisters for me so I was ok for a bit of walking but really needed to adjust. Stop two I had to go the bathroom and it took me the whole 10 minutes because I had never done so with a harness on before plus I thought I had to go number 2 lol…turns out I just had a lot of gas but did have to pee. Either way it was the most complicated pee situation all while two other mountaineers from the other rope teams had stopped a few feet from me to join in what felt like a high mountain bathroom party…

Having not eaten the first two stops I was starved by the third! I was thankful I had two gels I managed to down for some energy as we walked the first two hours though. By hour 3 my camelpak had froze so now I could only drink at the stops. Everyone knew the camelpak hose might freeze so we all had back up water but one girl lost a bottle when it flew down the slope and disappeared in a flash as we took a break! Finally at stop three I was able to get some food and water!

At the fourth stop I kind of froze. The wind was ripping from all directions and we were at this stop for 20 minutes. Had I known we’d stop so long I would have put my better gloves and a jacket on quicker but our guide didn’t warn us he just stopped and dug some ledges for us…I wanted to scream “I would have been warm had I done that myself!!!” This stop caused some friction because we got cold, Patrick wondering if we had enough layers and warmth to proceed and me knowing I did but wasn’t given information before it was late in the game to add those layers.

After the 4th stop we traversed across the mountain to enter and cross a crevasse at it´s corner, we crossed an ice fall area quickly, we set up some pickets to anchor us in while traversing a steep section between two deep crevasses and finally we jumped over a crevasse. Jumping a crevasse seemed the most sketchy to me yet I had zero problems with any of these crevasse areas but I know a few in the group didn´t like the tiny boot path traverse nor the picket anchor section. At about this same time the sky started to get a bit orange on the horizon…aka I got excited!

After this section we made it to the saddle between Liberty Cap and the summit of Rainier…yeah, only about a 1000 more vertical feet. The saddle felt like an achievement, it was the point we knew the best because you could see it well from Camp Schurman. Reaching the saddle was also a relief as it was respectively flatter ground for a bit. Everything above us was new, we had not really seen it from below in detail. We might have taken a break here but I don´t recall any, I just felt like we were moving rather quickly for 13,000 feet elevation. I made an effort to keep up but also slow the team down because it felt too fast for the altitude and I wanted my body to adjust. Like hey guys, ¨What happened to poley, poley?¨ When I climbed Mt. Kenya I remember the guide telling me every now and then Poley, Poley….Slowly, Slowly in Swahili….and this had kind of stuck with me since then whenever I climb big stuff…ha

Seemed my team was blazing a trail trying to make sunrise. Sunrise indeed was fast approaching, every time I looked East the sky was more orange, more bright, more beautiful and more striking against the snowy glaciers of Mt. Rainier. The snowy easy graded saddle ended abruptly at this rocky dome. The dome was the last part remaining between us and the summit. It was crusted with ice, fresh snow and cool wind shaped icicles on all the rocks from the prior day´s wind storm and had fumaroles emitting smoke from the crater. Only 500 ft of gain left…but oh my, it never ends…still 500 ft of steep incline ha ha!

About halfway up the sun popped over the horizon in one of the most spectacular sunrise displays I have ever witnessed. Everything turned an orangish pink, all the icicles on the rocks, the surface of this dome and my face as the sky burst full of orange with a burning bright sun in the middle of it. What an incredible place to witness a sunrise! I made my team stop and turn around so that they didn´t miss this incredible moment. Sometime after this we unroped and were set free to make our way to the summit. The two other rope teams were still on various parts of the saddle below us. At about 100 feet from the actual summit, Martin on my team yells out that he isn´t feeling well. Our guide asks what it is he is feeling. We keep moving but turns out he has some symptoms of acute altitude sickness…luckily nothing urgent that made us have to rush back down. I was worried for a moment…one of my biggest fears was that someone would get sick and we would have to descend…and hearing this so close to the summit I was like ¨oh no!¨ but also ¨if he needs to go down, how long can we stay up?¨ In the end he just needed to keep moving and drink water so we reached summit and stayed a while.

One of the best views I have ever seen greeted us on summit day.

It took us 8 hours to reach the summit of Mt. Tahoma/Mt. Rainier which happened at around 6 am on July 26th, a day later than anticipated but we did it! Only 4 miles and 4500 ft of gain to achieve 14,411 ft /4392 m at the tippy top of Washington and it was an absolute stunner, simply amazing! In fact, all three of our teams made summit and although they arrived over an hour later, everyone was so happy the summit could be reached, no one even cared that we still had to hike out lol.

Waiting for the teams gave us a whole hour to explore with the sun out we finally were back to a warmer state. I was literally hopping from one viewpoint to the next at the top meanwhile Martin with acute altitude sickness, was very out of it but still moving around. The storm had cleared everything for us…the sky was completely clear! You could see for miles in all directions, as far South as Mt. Jefferson in Oregon, Mt Olympus and the Sound to the West, Mt. Baker and into Canada to the North and out East as well. All mountains were out, hell, if I had thought about it I could have seen the Pacific Ocean but it never occurred to me that that would be possible so I didn´t look…oops! Also, did you know Mt. Rainier has two craters (both covered in glaciers)? I didn’t!

Due to the change in plans for our summit attempt, we no longer had another night to camp, instead we had to get to camp, pack up and hike out to the trailhead at White River Campground. That would be around 4,500 ft of gain and 10,000 ft of loss…pretty normal but not the original plan! With our summit high though, no one seemed to care, not even when we realized we were not going to be back to the trailhead at 6pm, nor 8pm but in actuality around midnight!….yeah over 24 hours of movement (including breaks).

Climbing big mountains like these where you do an alpine ascent (go up over night) it is always amazing to see the route taken in the daylight as you descend. I must say what a beautiful mountain to do this on. Seeing the layered mountains in the distance, the true white slope with jutting out and open crevasses, the heavily crevassed lower section of Emmons Glacier, Little Tahoma and the tiny winding White River and familiar Sunrise trails. Most of the way back to base camp though I spent looking down at Camp Schurman and thinking “hey, that is where we stayed!” followed quickly by, “damn, the tents are still so far away!” Even 1000ft up they couldn’t arrive any quicker as we navigated around crevasse after crevasse. It took us 6 hours to get back to base camp from the summit (including breaks, etc). 

At camp we spent 2.5 hours packing up, eating, changing, etc. Arriving to camp I really had to pee as I was not doing the whole harness pee thing again but instead when I got back the first thing I did after removing crampons was change clothes and lay on the cold floor of the tent with the snow underneath me. It felt sooo good! I tried to be quick so that I could nap some, all i got was an oddly  restful in and out of a trance as I waited laying on my mat outside for the “2 minute warning call”.

Right before we left camp these two runners came running by, teathered to a thin rope with minimal gear. Turns out they came from Paradise (DC route) and had been running for 8 hours…we watched them as they made their way down the mountain briskly. If only our journey down the mountain would be that fast…but ya know 50 lb packs lol

Heading down from camp took forever! Once we packed up and left we only walked 15 minutes before stopping again at the actual Camp Scherman for toilets (longer than needed), then roped in again to make it off the glacier and up a loose scramble area that half the group really struggled with so it was incredibly slow for the team to get through this part. Once past there we took a route we didn’t use before which was going down the Inter Glacier. This old glacier felt like a snowfield to me and the group I roped in with seemed to feel the same as we heel stepped/slid down the 2 miles of soft late afternoon snow and some icy patches in only 1 hour. It was a relief to be off snow and back to almost ground level. Only 7 miles or so until we’d reach the car ha …and just less than 2000 ft of elevation to go! Glacier Basin Campground was in sight but still at least a mile from where we changed at the bottom of Inter Glacier and the trail to it had plenty of loose rocks, only one in our group managed to stay upright lol. From the campground we were finally on a well traveled, groomed trail…such a luxury ha ha! Eventually daylight faded and we walked the rest of the way out with our headlamps for the second time that day. Finally at 11:30 pm (others in group came an hour later) we rolled into the parking lot delirious and nearly sleep walking after over 24 hours of almost non stop movement, ha only 13 miles covered in that time but a huge elevation loss and a stunning summit achieved! 

For most the adventure didn’t even stop at the trailhead, we all needed to drive somewhere. Some took naps others powered through with caffeine to get back to Portland or Oceanside in Oregon or at least a 1 hour drive somewhere nearby. I carpooled so I got a ride with my guide back to my car in Enumclaw and eventually made it home by 2:30 am. I thought for sure I would nap in the car before leaving but the 1 hour ride to my car let me get enough weird in and out of consciousness type sleep to drive.

I found the Emmons route to be a fairly steady incline with a few steep parts but overall if prepared all was easy going. Many do a two to three day trips for a Rainier summit bid while we had four days and only because we had that extra day were we able to summit. I know at least one team at Camp Schurman didn’t summit because of weather and their permit to camp expiring. Doing the Emmons route in two days would be two very long days. To go up via Muir it would be a long day followed by a longer day so a bit easier which might be why that route is more popular. Taking the route via Muir you cross the crater of Rainier and often walk over a ladder to cross at least one crevasse so there are some differences. While for Emmons you camp on a glacier, don’t cross the crater and potentially jump over a crevasse…ha ha. Views from camp are different too, sunrise is full on at Emmons and in addition to Rainier being quite visible you can see Glacier peak quite clearly and part of sunset….whereas at Muir you have less of a view overall but you do see South looking at Mt. Adams quite nicely framed and then some sunset lighting. Having been to both camps I think Schurman was better. As for routes up to the summit I can only speak about the Emmons Glacier route which can be a tad longer later in the summer but I enjoyed it plenty.

Having now summited Mt. Rainier it is definitely true that you can’t look at it the same. I keep looking trying to see where I was up there. In fact the days after summiting really hit me in an unexpected way. When I spotted it off in the distance that first week I would say to myself, “hey, I was up there!” and then immediately cry. It was definitely an unexpected reaction that caught me off guard. I know some people making the summit have spiritual reactions to the experience up there…I didn’t have any of that…I was just there at the top looking out and taking in the views but from the bottom for me it has been a different story. I believe the pursuit and success of fulfilling such a huge dream of mine had a really profound impact on me. It felt like closing some huge chapter, which scared and saddened me a lot. I had achieved this massive goal I set ages ago and worked at for years and in doing so it felt very freeing. It was freeing yet it scared me because it was like well now what, it is over, guess it is time to take the next step…make a big change. It was saddening me because I know it closed a chapter and that doing so meant it was indeed time for me to leave. I probably knew this when I signed up for it actually but never really took it to heart. I remember signing up thinking I hope I get a spot for it this year so I can do it before I leave. Maybe leave doesn’t make sense for some but for me it means leaving town, moving, doing something else in life, following bigger dreams, finding different happiness and all that can be pretty scary and emotional if you really think about it, especially given Seattle is the only place I have ever called truely called home!

I’m quite content with my whole experience climbing this year and with the company I went through. My only issue was with myself for training too hard and reaching a level of burnout that put me in a small damper mood the weeks before each of the exciting summits I had lined up and in fact their success. By the way I found my guide company while looking for suggestions on a Facebook Mountaineering Group when I started researching more about going with a guiding company. I found KAF Adventures which does one climb a year to Rainier. They have openings on a first come basis in early February. I decided to give it a shot since they included Mt. Baker as part of the trainings. Mt. Baker was my Plan A mountain in case another year went by without having done Mt. Rainier…aka I would have been happy if I only got a Mt.Baker attempt done this year. By the way when I say attempt, it is because summiting is never certain, that is up to the mountain in my mind. KAF only does 1 climb of Mt. Rainier because they get a permit to climb for a charity climb through the non profit, Washington Trails Association (WTA). So you pay the cost to climb in addition to fundraising for the WTA which helps maintain trails and is a huge source of information for all trails in Washington State…I use their website a ton…so I liked the fact that I can support an organization I enjoy a lot…even if I dislike having to fundraise. Check the fundraising page no matter what to read the updates I wrote about each training, I’d say it’s a good source for ideas!

WTA Fundraising Page (Read updates section for trainings)

Kaf Adventures mountaineering

WTA Hike Finder

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