Thursday of last week Rachel, Mihae (my coworker who's interested in coming up Rainier with us) and I met up with Mihae's friend Bram. He and his friends have climbed Rainier before and have a lot of experience with climbing mountains in general. We got a lot of good ideas from him on training we should do between now and then. Also, having another personal account of the climb itself made me feel more confident that I will be able to successfully climb the mountain.
A few of us decided to get together on Sunday to do a shorter hike to get started. We did the West Tiger Mountain #3 trail just off I-90. Other than slipping around a little on the snow and ice, we did a pretty good job of tackling the easier hike. As the weather starts to improve and the snow melts off the Cascades, we'll have more options for good training hikes. We've agreed that one of the best things about all the training will be all the neat areas we will get to discover between now and the end of June.
As for gear, I'd like to save I've acquired more stuff I'll need for the climb than I actually have already. I did order some gaitors from the REI outlet, but I'd like to find a good backpack, boots and a nice gore-tex shell jacket for the training I'll be doing over the next few months.
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