Ice Axe Annie

Mt. Baker

Friday after work we drove up to Mt. Baker and set up camp outside our cars. There was still too much snow on the road to go all the way to the trailhead, but we were less than a mile away from there. After building our tents, we only had about 2 hours to "sleep" before we were going to get up at 1am. Since we'll have to get up at 12:30am to start our journey for the summit of Rainier, this was good experience to get used to hiking in the middle of the night. We got going just before 2am on Saturday morning.



Just after the trailhead, we came to a bridge that had been washed out so we had to "ford" the river as the sign had indicated we would need to do. Luckily there was a tree over the river not far from the bridge and it was wide enough to walk across. This would prove to be good practice for me later in the day since I'm highly lacking in coordination! The trail was very hard to keep because it was mostly buried under snow. We actually ended up losing the trail for a while and went on a slightly precarious route. I slipped and fell at one point and my bad gut feeling I had before going into the trip made me stop for a minute and reevaluate whether I wanted to be climbing Mt. Baker this past weekend. Something was telling me that something bad would happen. Luckily my gut feelings weren't accurate.



We finally got out onto the glacier and it was wide open and beautiful - this put me at ease. That is, until we came to the first and only major crevasse we would cross for the day. I'm guessing the crevasse was at least 12 feet wide, with at least a 20 foot drop or more in parts. We had to cross this on a snow "bridge." The snow bridge was about 2 feet wide and of course, made of snow. This is why we did the crevasse rescue training and I'm glad we did. We all made it across safely and I tried not to look down!



Not long after crossing the crevasse and a little more of the glacier I heard a loud noise and looked to my right. A big chunk of snow was coming off the mountain and an avalanche was taking place right in front of us. It was hard to tell where it was going to stop - though where we were standing at the time, we were not in its path. It did scare me because it was approaching the trail we had just crossed and I knew we had to go back that way. The avalanche sent a snowball the size of a minivan down across the trail we had passed just minutes before. Again, this made my gut feelings get to me. As we got farther up the trail and passed other rope teams, they indicated that there was avalanche danger near the summit. I decided I didn't want to summit after hearing that. I stopped at 8,000 feet and Mihae decided to stop there with me as well. It was a perfect stopping point for not summiting. It was a rocky section of the mountain so other climbers and skiers were stopping there for breaks so it was fun talking to others while we were there. The view was amazing!



The guys in the group, Harrison and Bram, decided that they would attempt the summit and they almost made it there. They did an avalanche test and decided not to risk going all the way to the summit. This made me feel better about my decision.



I have to say the whole experience made me feel better about Rainier. Experiencing some of the things I may come against with the mountain put things more into perspective. I also realized that I am in shape for climbing Rainier so all the hard work has paid off physically. The plan is still to summit the third weekend of July.

Big training climb

Just a quick update since I don't have a lot to report. Everything is on schedule right now for us to summit the third week of July, so just under a month away now. I'm ready! I want it to be here already. Every time I look at Rainier from Seattle I just imagine that I'll be standing up on top of it soon. I want to stop having to imagine it and just be there!

This weekend we're doing a big training climb. The choices were Mt. Hood, Mt. Baker or Mt. Shuksan. It looks like we're probably leaning toward Mt. Baker. I was hoping for Hood or Baker since they're both mountains that you can see from far away. I like the idea of looking at a big mountain and knowing that I've climbed it. The weather is supposed to be perfect this weekend, so we should have pretty good conditions for whatever climb we do.

I'll likely try to do another big hike or two after that. Possibly a second try for Camp Muir in early July.

The Unpredictable Mountain

The photo above is Camp Muir on a day with perfect conditions. Not a cloud in the sky. Minus a really bad sunburn from almost a whole day of the sun reflecting off the snow, my hike up to the 10,000' level of Rainier last summer was amazing. Unfortunately this week some others weren't lucky enough to have those prime conditions. A Seattle PI article tells the sad story of three climbers, one of which died, on their trip to Camp Muir. I've always heard that Mt. Rainier has its own weather system and that storms can creep up on you out of nowhere.

This article scared me on one level and made me realize I made the right choice this past weekend. For several months now I had been planning to do the very same hike to Camp Muir as a training hike with some of my Rainier group. I had planned to go down to the park for the weekend, camp and participate in a Cache In Trash Out (CITO) trail cleanup with geocachers on Saturday and then make the trek to Muir on Sunday. The few days before this was to happen I kept an eye on the weather and it didn't look good for Mt. Rainier National Park. Rain, snow and cold temperatures. Shortly before the weekend I talked to the people who were coming with me and we decided that maybe it would be best to do a hike around Seattle on Sunday instead. On Saturday after the CITO event we drove to Paradise where the trailhead is and the conditions seemed horrible. You could only see about 200 feet in front of you because of clouds and fog. We stopped and talked to some mountaineers doing some crevasse rescue training and they warned that if we were heading out on any trails to take a compass, as they said a lot of people were getting turned around. Based off that, I felt like I had made the right decision not to take others on the hike I had only done one time in my life. Today I've had people sending me the link to the article telling me they're glad we decided not to do the hike.

There will be risks in climbing Rainier, but then there are risks in everything. This is a challenge I've made for myself because it will be tough, but it will be attainable.

Two More Mountains and more skills

So I have been keeping busy with training over the past week. Monday I took advantage of the day off work to go hike the "super highway" known as Mt. Si over in North Bend. It's only a half hour from Seattle, so whenever the weather's decent (or even if it's not) this hiking trail can be packed. I actually prefer this when I'm out hiking by myself, which was the case. Knowing that I'm within yelling distance of another human being makes me feel completely safe hiking alone. To make sure I'm on the right track for climbing Rainier, I needed to climb Si in an hour and 45 minutes. I did exactly that. I've definitely climbed the mountain in less time before, but this was the first time I was carrying over 40lbs of weight on my back. I must say that I did enjoy all the positivity I got from the people I passed on the trail. Several people along the way asked what I was training for or if I was training for Rainier. More than one person, knowing that I was carrying a lot of weight, congratulated me when I made it to the top. It's a nice feeling knowing that people are out there rooting me on, even when they don't even know me!

On Thursday night our Rainier group got together to do some crevasse rescue training. Just in case someone on our rope team does fall into a crevasse, we learned the basics of how to build a Z Pulley system to pull them out. We've basically learned all the rope and safety stuff that we need to learn now. So now we just have to make sure we're in great shape!



Today our group went over to the Olympic Penninsula to hike Mt. Ellinor. The mountain is beautiful and I definitely want to go back and check it out again. While this was only about a 3 mile hike, it was good for elevation gain (right around 3000'). A section of this hike was up a chute that is very similar to the Camp Muir section of Rainier. It was a cloudy hike on the way up, but toward the top we broke through the clouds and found a beautiful day at the summit. The best part of this hike was getting to glissade back down the chute. Glissading definitely saves time and saves a lot of pressure on the knees!

Train, train, train!

Hopefully in about a month from now I'll be packing my backpack to head down to climb Rainier. In the mean time, there's just a lot of training to be done. Last night Mihae and I did the cable line of Tiger Mountain. Typically hiking trails have switchbacks as they work their way up the mountain. The cable line goes straight up the mountain. It's a common training hike for people who want to summit Rainier. Bram was hoping we'd make the hike in under an hour and 15 minutes to make sure were getting in good shape for our summit climb. Mihae and I made it in an hour so we were happy about that.

This weekend is going to be a good opportunity to get some training in. Rachel, CJ and I are currently investigating some possibilities for a more strenuous hike/climb. We had wanted to do Mt. Adams, but with the all the snow from this winter, the conditions aren't in our favor quite yet. I do really want to climb Adams at some point this year, even if it's after Rainier. We also considered Mt. St. Helen's for this weekend, but being Memorial day weekend and that climb having a limited number of permits it's not likely to work out. We'll probably head up Highway 2 somewhere as there are plenty of opportunities out that way.

As for my non-hiking conditioning I've been keeping up with my usual running, boxing fitness class and soccer during the week. I've been trying to add several sets of stairs with every run. I think overall strength building is going to be what I need to focus on now.

I'm definitely anxious for the actual climb to be here already. When I started planning this in January it felt like it was forever away so it's nice to know it's getting so close.

Gear and Training

Good news! I now have all the gear I need for my trip up Rainier. I got my ice axe, harness, prussicks and caribiners, helmet, tent, sleeping pad, shovel, waterproof shell and a bunch of other stuff over the past week. I feel like I should own REI after all the money I've spent there over the past few months. I guess maybe I'll have a nice dividend check next year! Having the right gear definitely can make or break the overall experience and I feel pretty confident with the what I have now.

Our latest group training was this past weekend. We headed over to Alpental at Snoqualmie Pass Saturday evening and hiked up in the rain to our camping spot. The rain ended up making the camping not very pleasant since we were soaked by the time we got our tents up. My new shovel came in handy for digging out a flat spot in the snow for our tents. It's more to carry, but again, it's definitely nice to have.

In the middle of the night the rain turned to snow and this ended up causing the tent to almost cave in. I'm considering returning the tent for another style, though I like how light and compact it is.

Sunday was all about training. We worked on self arrest training which is very important to know in case we slip and start falling down the mountain. The training for this was pretty fun too because we got to do some glissading (basically sledding without a sled). Glissading was my favorite part of the Camp Muir hike I did last year and I'm looking forward to it again this year. We also did some training on our rope teams.



It may be a lofty goal, but some of us are considering climbing Mt. Adams over Memorial Day weekend. Though the climb's not technical, it's still pretty long and will get us up over the 12,000 foot level so we can see how we do with the altitude. Recent reports said getting to the trailhead was a 12 mile snowshoe trip. Hopefully the warm weather over the next few days will change that, otherwise we may have to consider climbing Adams another time.