Mount Rainier, Emmons Glacier - August 8 to August 12, 2016

After climbing Half Dome with Dylan and Joey on my team on August 2nd, Dylan and I left the valley and drove north through Sacramento, the Redwoods, and Portland to reach Ashford, Washington.

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More story telling here from memory:

We arrived around noon and quickly got started from the White River campground in a drizzle and made it up through Glacier Basin and the Inter Glacier to Camp Curtis around 7 pm totally soaked. I can remember being completely worked at this point and asking why I didn't train my cardio better. Luckily Dylan, who had more experience in this realm, had his wits about him better than I did and so navigated and got us settled in camp. It wasn't long before our things began to dry and we passed out from our efforts on the day.

Camp Schurman Ranger Station (9,460 ft)

When we woke up we packed up the tent in its soaking and dirty condition and made our way to Camp Schurman. Having never been up there before, we made our own path following the red, and not recommended, path in the photo below. (Don't take the Camp Curtis pin, or either path to be exact)

From Google Earth

We had no idea that an easier and safer way existed that bypassed the 200-300 foot down-climb we did off of Steamboat Prow. Thankfully the weather had improved to overcast with no precipitation so we were able to make it safely to Camp Schurman in a couple of hours.

After reaching Camp Schurman on Day 2, the weather turned to be pretty nice in the afternoon (right two pictures above) but quickly turned to terrible fog and wind on Day 3 that had us thinking we may not get to make a summit attempt. We went to sleep that night stoked but not super optimistic about the weather.

We woke up at midnight, peeked out of the tent and saw tons of stars. Immediately, we were wide awake and knew this was our opportunity to go to the summit. Starting at 1 am, Dylan charged up a large ramp of moderately steep and crunchy snow taking us to about 11,000 feet. After doing some accidental ice climbing and crossing a huge crevasse (see left) the sun was up and the top was in sight.

Getting to the summit around 9 am, we were amazed that we were the only ones up there! Bluebird skies and great temps offset our exhaustion and lack of acclimatization.

We descended without incident making it back to Camp Schurman at 1 pm and subsequently back to the car around 6 or 7 pm. I remember being exhausted and thinking the car would be better for some reason and so we ended up driving to Yakima (about 2 hours) that night and staying in a motel.

So having calculated it, the time from standing on top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park to driving to Washington and Standing on top of Mount Rainier was a matter of 8 days! High stoke and great friends are what make things like that possible.