Bram and Mt. Rainier
bramski
Day 1: Seattle to 9,000 feet
At 8am on Saturday our little carpool of myself, Lindsay Malone, and Katie Steffl set out for our much anticipated climb of Mt Rainier. The plan? Meet at paradise and start the journey towards Camp Muir at 1pm. So, Katie’s little car and all our gear sped on down 167 whilst I regailed them with the joys of being a male climber. Somehow, we’re the first people there… not the plan. Ken, Sabrina, Sammy, Christy, Ben, Steve, and Gilbert all show up about an hour later to help us explain to the tourists how we’re “going to the top”.
And then the fun begins! I threw on my 45lb. pack and we started smashing our way up to our planned camp at 9,000 ft. Beautiful views of all the small ranges around Rainier the whole way up, and 80 degree heat with all the sunlight you can get reflecting off the snow. It’s pretty cool to pass all the day hikers, looking like an idiot with this huge pack and giant plastic boots on and feeling like such a badass with the entire climbing group in tow. Add 3,000 feet, about 5 hours, and a lot of snow, and we’re all celebrating Sabrina’s birthday at base camp numero uno.
Day 2: Camp Muir and Ingraham Flats
It’s day 2, our day off, so that means only 1,500 feet or so from our camp to Ingraham flats and the rest to rest until midnight, when we start the final summit push. It was a deceivingly short jaunt from our camp to camp Muir, where my friend the crevasse makes his first appearance. Camp muir wasn’t nearly what I expected, I imagined a singular ranger station with a dumping whole for blue bags and perhaps a giant American flag, instead there’s a bunch of half destroyed bunkers and some outhouses that smell like wonderful pecan pie! But there were a bunch of snow covered tents and highly excited alpine climbers.
At this point, we put on helmets, harnesses, and pulled out my favorite tool for ripping rain pants and scaring small children on Seattle buses, ice axes. It’s then a long walk and roped up climb across the Cathedral gap to Ingraham flats where I discovered just how exhausting it feels to set up a tent at 11,000 feet. A nap and 2 liters of water later, and I’m feeling pretty good at that altitude. Eating, drinking, sleeping, shitting, it’s pretty much all you do at that altitude, sure does make you feel good though. I was nervous, excited, tired, and antsy, and the sun was shining brightly, so I think I slept about 2.5 of the hours between 6pm and midnight.
Day 3: Zero hour, the climb
Unfortunately, when we woke up at zero hour there were some intermittent but strong winds hitting our tent. We waited out a half hour hoping that the winds would die, but given the nature of the winds Ken decided we should go for it, figuring they’d die down as we went. There weren’t any clouds or a lenticular over the summit, so the wind was going to be the worst of it. So I downed my snickers bar and Lindsay and I geared up, got out of the tent, and got roped up.
I’m honestly sorry that I don’t have any pictures from this part of the climb, none of them were exposed enough. The full moon was out, and you could see the tops of all the clouds covering all of Washington state like this giant lightly moonlit foam covering the land with just this giant craggy outcropping we were climbing on jutting into the stars. Lots of little headlamps illuminate this switchbacky winding pack through rock and snow which just feels so hardcore in the darkness. Every so often you look up, or to your left and see these giant cracks in the snow where these crevasses look like they’re just ready to swallow someone whole. So beautiful.
The DC route is such a beaten path at this point, that it’s near impossible to get lost, or slip. In some spots it’s more of a trough that you’re digging your crampons into. Even still, the 20-30mph gusts would have me digging in and turning my helmet to get pelted with mini ice crystals being blown off of the slope. It took us about 3 hours to get to the top of the disappointment cleaver where we took our first real break. I downed one of four goo packets there, and we rested before heading onto the upper mountain. From there all the way onto 6am it’s pretty simply one foot after another (not forgetting to breathe of course), we crossed one bridge RMI had put across a crevasse about halfway up, wondering when we’re going to get to the top of this fucking beast of a walk up this mountain. Those goo shots do power you through though, sometime around 4-5am it hit me like a rocket not too far from the top. It was about here that we passed another rope team (booyah!).
I don’t think I’ve ever been as tired as I was when we got on top of that crater. A stiff breeze rolling through the snow nearly bowled me over at one point, but damn that’s a hell of an experience. We made our way across and up to the actual summit and took two shots in 40-50mph sustained winds and headed back down to sign the climbing registration, we were the first summiters of July 10th at 6:35am.
Day 3: Descent
As soon as you start taking your first steps down, you feel 100x better, like night and day. We headed right back down the route we came to meet with Sabrina at the Ingraham flats again to pack up those tents and load our packs for the journey back. So all the way onto 4pm we slammed our ankles into those boots and glissaded all the way down the Muir snowfield back to the cars for beer, chips, and salsa.
Amazingly enough, I felt great the next day, just some soreness in my calves, but I hit Stone Gardens with Thien-An and polished my summit rock off just last night.
My map of the climb
Posted on: Thursday, July 13, 2006 at 11:53 pm 
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