Mt. Rainier

May 21-22, 2017
Mt. Rainier 14,411
Ingraham Direct

Just one day before, Laura and I had climbed Mt. Saint Helens with her family. We had now set our sights on a mountain that was on Laura's radar for quite a while. I had never considered Rainier a must do for myself, but it was a few years ago that my great friend and climbing buddy Isaac had began working on me to go to this great mountain with him. He had the opportunity to climb last year but couldn't obtain the summit on that trip so he was to join us this year. We made plans to climb via the Furher Finger, the mountains most direct route. Isaac knows that we are a strong group and that we move quickly when we climb together, so he was putting in consistent miles to be in top shape for the climb. He wasn't going to be denied the summit for a second year in a row.

Laura and I were at home practicing crevasse rescue techniques when I got a text from Isaac. All it said was "Looks like I'm out for Rainier". I immediately knew this was not good because Ike never bails. He had taken a 15' ground fall rock climbing and had broken his ankle pretty badly. Ike was devastated and we were equally bummed that one of our closest friends and best adventure partner would not be with us for our mountain adventure.

Driving and talking about the fun we would be having if Ike were here with us, we read the rangers climbing blog. Due to the lengthy warm weather spell the region had been having, we made plans to talk to the climbing rangers about conditions on the mountain before making a final decision on what route to take. With multiple feet of recent snow and very warm weather, we decided that Furher Finger would be a slushy mess and would likely be unclimbable, so we switched to plan B. Ingraham direct was put in by rangers just a few days prior and only had a few crevassed areas opening up so we chose to go for that while it was available. We had planned on taking the entire day for rest but didn't want to miss our window for a more direct line to the summit on a rapidly changing route. We decided to leave for Camp Muir at 4 pm that afternoon.
It was very hot at the parking area so we opted to make the hike to Camp Muir in our tennis shoes rather than our warm boots. Carrying all of our overnight gear and working through the slush, we made camp in 4 hours. We set up our tent, made dinner and melted snow before retiring for a few hours of sleep before our 2:30 am alarm.

Most groups leave before midnight but Laura and I felt like we could make the summit in good time and didn't want to be on top before sunrise so we set a start time of 3 am. Off we went, roped together and carrying rescue gear, we moved quickly through some steep terrain, traversing back and forth to end run multiple crevasses. We were treated to something that neither of us had ever seen before; the moon was rising as just a sliver but was bright red. As the sky lightened the moon became orange and then slowly faded with the morning light. After a few hours of climbing, we came to a ladder to cross the largest open crevasse of our chosen route. Without incident, we crossed the ladder and continued quickly through a dangerous area of overhanging seracs, or snow covered ice looming above us.

We were 3 hours into our day and discussing where we thought we were at on the route when we came to another climber who informed us that we were just about an hour from the summit crater. We figured we were just past halfway so this was a pleasant surprise and motivated us to keep our strong pace to the summit. As we climbed closer, we talked about our friend Ike and how we wished he was there with us. He would have loved it that day. At that point we decided that we would go back with him when he was ready. We would do what it would take to help our friend make the summit he so dearly wanted to stand atop of. Continuing on, we made the summit crater at 7 am, walked across the huge depression and up to Columbia Crest. We spent a half hour looking out and admiring the view from the highest point in Washington state.

The descent to Camp Muir went quickly with only one stop to wait for some people crossing the ladder. We chatted with some rangers and were breaking down the tent before we knew it. We made it back to the car at 1 pm, went to the visitors center for a while and were off to stay with Laura's brother in laws family for the night before continuing on our journey south.