If Mount Rainier was in Austria, I likely would have explored it on my first week in that country. But for all my life I’ve looked at it standing Fuji-like on Seattle’s horizon and never driven the hour off I-5 to actually take a hike there.
A friend, Sherri, celebrated her 50th birthday by assembling a gang of nine (including me and my wife Anne) to hike to Camp Muir — the base camp at 10,400 feet, below the mountain’s 14,400 foot summit. Helmets are required to hike beyond Camp Muir.
I’ve never really hiked up a mountain like this so gear was a mystery to me. I used gaiters for the first time (great for keeping snow from falling into your shoes). I tried some borrowed, “serious” boots but opted for my high-top Eccos (my winter Europe shoes — they were just fine). I never wear sunglasses but everyone said that they’re required for hiking all day on snow and ice. I found old clip-ons and bent them to fit my current glasses. (My one gear regret was eye protection — my eyes are sore and red today.)
Suiting up in the parking lot, I debated between polypropylene gear and my favorite cotton. Every mountaineer loves to say “cotton kills” (it doesn’t keep you warm when wet) but I anticipated hot weather and wore the cotton, packed the polyprope, and appreciated the cool of my sweat on this gloriously sunny day. Ski poles were vital. I don’t think I could have made it without them (for helping power up, navigating fields of ankle-breaking rocks, and glissading down). The prescribed water for a nine-mile, 5,000-foot elevation gain hike: two to three liters. I took five half-liter plastic bottles and finished the last one in sight of our lodge.
I wrapped my toes prophylactically. In their white tape they looked like little hostages. It was probably best they didn’t know where I was taking them.
The nine of us left Edmonds at 5:30 am, arrived at Paradise Lodge in Mount Rainier National Park by 9:00, and were on the trail by 9:30. I had hopes of getting back to the lodge in mid-afternoon. We would rumble home just as the sun was setting at 7:30 pm. We took it easy — and spent 10 hours on the hike.
Searching the web for “Camp Muir Rainier hike” I found reports all over the place on the time required (four to eight hours). All said it was a very difficult hike, not for beginners, and worth the work. As this was September, we hiked through a lot of rock fields, which slowed us down. Not in mountain-climbing shape, I enjoyed plenty of re-energizing “savor the view” stops. The views explained to me why many find God on Rainier.
A nine-mile hike with a 5,000 foot elevation gain means we gained one mile in altitude in 4.5 miles of uphill climbing. I just thought: I’m climbing and then descending a staircase a mile high. In Europe there would have been a gondola to the summit — here you had to earn it.
The first half of the hike took us to Pebble Creek, a steep, partially-paved, then dirt path lined with boulders to keep you off the fragile meadows. We saw deer, marmot, and chipmunks. On this Thursday in mid-September, we probably passed 100 people over the hike. I’d say a quarter of them were foreign visitors. Every time a group of “summiteers” passed us — marching effortlessly up or down in their crampons — we felt like sophomores in the presence of upperclassmen.
Sherri, the birthday girl, had made the hike six times. The guardian angel of blister protection, she’d wrap anyone’s “hot spot” anywhere … anytime. At each stop we’d slather on the sunscreen.
Halfway up, we stopped and chatted with a dear 76-year-old man — who looked 60. He was Dale Thompson, a retired ranger who had spent a lifetime working and playing on this mountain. Hearing him recount his mountaineering stories was as engrossing as reading some thrilling mountain-climbing book.
The last mile was exhausting. Step after step I trudged, staring at my shadow in the snow leading me uphill. There was no trail really … just keep climbing up. Sliding back on the ice sucked extra energy. Slow, small steps … breathe loudly, Dale Thompson advised (“none of this macho holding your breath”). For one stretch I put on my iPod to sample the joy of music at 10,000 feet and found it made climbing easier.
A distressed man in a t-shirt came through the snowfield at me. I took off my earbuds and he said, “Be careful of the crevasses.” As this was September, the crevasses were opening up. He crashed through one, just catching himself with half his body dangling over an open hole. Horizontal fissures marked the last stretch of our hike to Camp Muir. We’d cross them where it seemed to be strongest. Following a line of boot prints, I came upon a hole in the ice three feet around and then the boot steps showed how he somehow got out and carried on. It must have been the guy in the t-shirt.
Camp Muir is a shanty hamlet of three or four mountain huts where, for a century, people have slept before summiting Rainier. The best thing about the place is the commanding view and the feeling of accomplishment for a novice to actually be here. Most people’s Camp Muir memory includes the smell of sewer.
My memory is of a tumbling boulder. Two hundred yards below Camp Muir is an ice field dotted with volcanic boulders — most a foot or two wide, some four or five feet wide. I was with three others and our main concern was simply keeping our footing on the steep, icy face. Suddenly we felt, heard, and then saw a huge boulder bouncing demonically down the mountain right at us. It’s one of those times when your brain works at the speed of light. Clearly, the rock would have killed whoever it hit. I looked at the rock — thought of my wife and the others. It was bouncing like a goofy football and could go potluck in any direction. It felt surreal, like I was in a treacherous video game. I remember thinking “I’d love to grab a photo … but in a snapshot, it would look just like all the other boulders.” Then I thought, “That’s ridiculous.” We scrambled to the side and it bounced by us, getting as much air as a tumbling beach ball. Gathering our wits, now we all just wanted to cross those crevasses and get back down.
We passed the t-shirt man’s body hole, hopped and slid past the crevasses, and finally got to more comfortable terrain. My knees and legs were pretty tired and I knew there was a mile of altitude to lose before dinner. I put on my polyprope jacket and heavy leather mitts in anticipation of a tumble on the rocks or ice.
We cracked open our big black garbage bags and, with every chance to sled down a snowfield, held the bags between our legs like a diaper, rolled on our side to dig in our ski poles to slow down when necessary, and scooted, laughing, down the mountain. Navigating between ice fields on the broken rocks was no fun. As we descended (realizing we’d spent six hours just getting from Paradise at 5,000 feet to Camp Muir at 10,400 feet) we kept marveling at the story of the fastest Rainier climber, who actually went from Paradise to the summit (14,400 feet) and back in four hours.
At Pebble Creek we took off the gaiters and dressed down for the easy hike back to the lodge. Just as photographers were hiking up to catch the purples and golds of the sunset on the mountain, we got back to Paradise Lodge. With four bloody knees and two bloody elbows and nine big smiles between us, we were thankful to all be home in one piece.
For me, I think this was the max. Stretching out on the split-log bench, under the sturdy eaves of our humble circa 1920 mountain lodge, I was almost not able to get up. I felt wonderfully stiff. Looking back up at the mountain, I was thankful that I had skipped two days of work to enjoy Sherri’s fiftieth, the best birthday party of my life. And for the rest of my life, when I marvel at our Seattle views of Mount Rainier, it will come with more understanding and rich memories.