Greg, Jeff, Zachariah, Ben, and Mike (I don't know why but Paul is missing) getting ready to start walking
After registering and collecting our blue bags we started climbing at about 0900. We couldn't have asked for better weather. We originally planned 4 days in case the weather was bad and it took longer to climb, but we had amazingly clear weather for the whole climb.
Enjoying the first Clif bar
When we got to the lodge and were getting ready to climb I found that my sunglasses had disappeared and so I had to buy the one pair of non-geriatric looking glasses in the gift shop. When I got back from the climb it turned out Bran had been looting my pack and had taken the glasses right before I left.
Pebble Creek, just before the ice starts (Jeff, Greg, Paul, and Mike)
Bathroom with a view of Mt. Adams (Ben)
Still a long way before Camp Muir (Paul, Jeff, and Zachariah)
500 ft below Camp Muir with Cathedral Rocks in view
Arriving at Camp Muir, finally
Digging out a pad for our huge 6-man base camp tent
Making water for the summit climb (Zachariah)
We burned through 3-4 liters per person of water on the first day, which is normal. And on the summit bid you have to have about 1 gallon of water per person, so after setting up the tent we started melting/filtering the water for the next days climb. It took about 2.5 hours to melt all the water and cook all the food.
Sunset from Camp Muir
Climbing up to Cathedral Gap from Camp Muir (Mike, Greg, Jeff, Paul, and Ben)
Most teams woke up around 0100 and kicked off for the summit bid in the dark. We were a bit lazy however and tried to get up at 0300, rolled out of bed around 0400 and left for the summit climb at about 0500. The nice thing about it was that we didn't have to climb by flashlight.
Stepping onto the Ingram Glacier from Cathedral Gap
The first look at the Disappointment Cleaver from Ingram Glacier (Zachariah)
View of Mt. Adams through Cadaver Gap on the Ingram Glacier (Ben)
Making our final approach to the Disappointment Cleaver
Weird spikey snow on the Cleaver
Looking down on the Ingram Glacier from the Cleaver
Clambering up the lower skree patch on the Cleaver
Settling in for a long break
After a long push to get to a safe place to rest we stopped on a small skree patch on top of the Cleaver and took about a 40 minute break. At this point we started to see the first successfull summit teams coming down from the early morning groups. We had come across a few unsuccessful groups that had had to return without making it to the top.
Ben jumping over a skinny and very deep crevasse
Greg jumping over the same crevasse
Checking out the last really big crevasse before the steep final climb (Paul, Greg, Jeff, Mike, and Ben)
Looking down on Little Tahoma from Emmons Glacier (Greg, Mike, Ben)
The summit (Greg, Jeff, Ben in back, Paul in front, Mike, and Zachariah)
We summited at about 1530 on 16 July with two strained knees and one migraine as our only group injuries. We sat down in the crater to rest and Ben started going sort of crazy. He had a steadily worsening migraine as we climbed and at the top it became so unbearable that he could hardly walk. When he started asking us to medevac him we decided it was time to get down some elevation and see if it would ease the pain, so we only spent a mere few minutes at the top. It was really an amazing climb, extremely difficult, and beautiful. After summiting we turned around and made it back to Muir around 2100, a grueling 16 hour day.
A couple of months before the climb I had this dream that we all got to the top and there was a Japanese tourist bus there and someone had built a road up the other side. We were really angry in my dream after half killing ourselves to get up there. Well, as we approached the summit we passed the last team to come off the top before we got up there, and it just happened to be a 4 man Japanese team that flew to the States just to summit Rainier! How random is that?
