To me at least it is really surprising that I've yet to set foot on Mount Rainier until today! Katie has been at least once - all the way to Camp Muir above 10,000', but I had only driven around it. So while it was really sad for me not to have Katie at my side today (she is in Spain on business and about to enjoy Mother's Day there with her mom!) I also felt like it was a free chance to catch up to her a bit! Here is a recap of my adventure.
Mount Rainier, due to it's size, seems a lot closer than it is! After 3 hours of driving and about 20 minutes at the Whittaker/RMI rental facility in Ashford (they call it base camp), I ascended a mile high to Paradise, where the road (at least this time of year) ends - at this point one is officially on the mountain. My stop in Ashford was to rent special boots - "plastics" they call them. If you're thinking "ski boots?" - yup, pretty much, which is funny because the gal helping me out mentioned how they are "way different." We'll see about that. Although not really necessary for today's purposes, the idea was to get comfortable in them, because one will really need them up higher (above Muir). They insulate better, they allow one to kick step into ice a bit better, and they also are specially compatible with crampons.
The parking lot was packed, no surprise, because the weather today was absolutely gorgeous. And it's about time - after a lovely winter this spring in Seattle has been awfully cold and wet. With my shiny new rental boots donned and ready, and all slathered up with sunscreen, and carrying about 30 lbs, we gathered and launched up the mountain destined for Pebble Creek. By the way we never saw a creek, which came as no surprise as the entire trip was on feet deep snow.
Starting out it was pretty shallow, and still pretty hard packed icy snow. Ever walk in ski boots on overall level but locally uneven hard packed snow? Same thing. Seriously, trekking/ski poles were necessary to stay upright. As the pitch increases we become single file (which by the way is a bummer because conversations become more difficult), and now we're trying to "kick-step" into partially forged foot holds from those ahead of us. Still a little awkward but not relying on the poles now. Now the pitch increases a lot - maybe to 35-40 degrees. After a quick lesson about "rest steps" and "pressure breathing" we head up. Ahah! This is what these boots are made for! They work perfectly, no awkwardness - now I can just fully focus on making progress upward. And of course my feet are super cozy - and no signs of blistering. Once we level out and stop our leader tells us that's the steepest portion of the entire climb to the summit! Wow - what a confidence builder that was for everyone. Nobody in the group really had any trouble with it, technically or physically - so the group is really kicking butt. On and up we go and the only bummer about this whole thing (because this is a near perfect day so far) is that we all end up looking down so much, carefully planning each step. We really had to stop to enjoy the view, but we did that a lot, and it was beautiful! After only about 2.5 hours our leader just kind of stopped and said - "ok we're there - you made it, this is 7,200' and we're somewhere near Pebble Creek!" It went by super fast, and it was really effortless for me, and I think most of us. The training has really paid off! So we spent about 20 minutes enjoying the sun, having lunch, conversing and so on, and then headed down. A lot of us really wanted to keep going to Camp Muir because it was such an awesome day and we felt so good, but alas we will save that for another day.
On the way down we worked on "plunge stepping" - another skill we've learned already through the Scrambling course we're simultaneously taking. And I think we got down in about an hour was all! And just like that the day was already over.
A few of us followed a recommendation and we met up at the Copper Creek restaurant back towards Ashford for a late lunch/beer - and Jeff swore they had the best blackberry pie ever. You know I had to take that challenge!
PS - he was right.
The 3 hour drive home finished off the day and the only thing that would have made it better was having Katie with me, oh and also Lily dog. No dogs allowed in the park so she had to stay at home today. I've got a lot of outdoor time to make up with her tomorrow in the yard. In total I think only 4 miles, but about 2,000' vertically (on icy snow).
The best blackberry pie of all time (Copper Creek Restaurant near Ashford, WA)
The view to the SE from somewhere near Pebble Creek (Mt Adams lurking out there - see if you can spot it)
The view up from somewhere near Pebble Creek (7,200')
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