After coming down from Mt Adams on Labor Day weekend, I was getting cabin fever down at 500 ft. I needed to get back up to 10,000 ft where there is peace and solitude on the mountain. I find the mountains to be such a wonderful place. Of course the mountain has no feelings about who decides to climb her slopes, so proper gear and preparation are key to making the mountain a wonderful place. Otherwise, the conditions can ruin your experience and even claim your life. I can now say navigating through a white-out for over an hour was not too scary while trusting in my GPS and compass.
My experiences on the mountain are so wonderful that I have a great desire to share these experiences with those who I am close too. I took a good friend up in June. He will never forget that experience. I decided to take my brother-in-law up to Muir on this October trip.
After checking the mountain weather forecast, I realized crampons were going to be required. The forecast called for 10-15 degrees and 15-20 Mph winds (-9 wind chill). Looking back, I realized it was a little ballsy to take up my brother who has no mountaineering experience as well as subjecting him to the dicey weather conditions at 10,000 feet in late October. At about the 9000 ft level I stopped to turn around to check on my bro. I began to walk back a little to see where he was at. My crampon dug in unexpectedly and I went down on my knees. Before I knew it, I was sliding down out of control with no ice axe in my hands, just trekking poles. I was able to arrest by dragging my feet. I was fortunate to have this fall on a less steep section of the trail. I was headed for a very steep section littered with sharp rocks that would have caused major if not fatal bodily harm! I consider this scare of great value since it put some much needed fear into me. Immediately my fears went to my brother because of his inexperience. He was fine and I stressed to him to just take slow methodical steps up to the top. I had an ice axe, but I decided not to use it since my brother did not have one and he wouldn't of been able to make much use of it if I gave it to him. Due to my little scare, our time spent up at Camp Muir was a little rushed as I was uneasy about the downward trip ahead of us. It was 3:30 and Sunset was at 6pm. Consequently, I forgot to get some good photos of us together at the top. We did have a much needed warm meal that we cooked inside the public shelter. We each ate a mountain house meal and drank a cup of hot cider.
In the 45 minutes we spent at the top, the snow picked up as well as a little bit of wind. With my GPS in hand, we walked into the white abyss and blindly traveled back down. The whiteout lasted about an hour. I stopped every few minutes to unzip my coat and pull out the cozy GPS in my chest pocket to check our heading. By the way, I highly reccomend the Garmin 62ST handheld GPS. I was able to turn in on when we left our car and keep it on until we returned 9 hours later with still 75% battery charge. The tracks it records was key to my peace of mind while walking down the mountain in the whiteout.
In the dark, about 7pm, we made it back to the car and thanked God for a safe trip to Muir.
I am going to take away a few lessons learned from climbing on Rainier this time of year:
- Wear a helmet on that steep and hard icy stuff!
- Ditch the trekking poles when you get to the Muir snowfield. Pull out the ice axe.
- Roping up together would be a good idea too.
- Always bring the crampons. (we would have NEVER made it up that terrain without them)
- Always have a GPS and compass with you (which is one of the 10 essentials)
Thanks for reading.
~Aaron
