Targo Tennisberg - Mt Rainieri pildid / Mt Rainier Pictures

The Home Highpoint

[Climbing team: Andre, Karen, John, Mark, Barry, Dan, Eli, Jonah, Randy, Targo, Tony]
[Summit team: Karen, Barry, Dan, Eli, Jonah, Randy, Targo, Tony]

I finally summited the highpoint of my current home state on July 4th, 2005. As soloing Rainier is still beyond my current abilities, I went up together with a group of Mountaineers club members.
Our leader, Andre, had chosen the Emmons Glacier route for our ascent, and the long weekend of 7/2-4, 2005 for the date. The plan was to arrive in Camp Schurman on Saturday, spend most of Sunday resting, and start the summit attempt around Sunday midnight.

Saturday, July 2nd
We took off from White River Campground at 8am on Saturday with 11 people. I was carrying Andre's tent and a picket in addition to my own gear, so my pack was probably over 50 pounds when starting out. In fact, getting to Camp Schurman turned out to be the physically hardest part of the whole climb because of all the weight I had to drag with me. The trail took us to about 7400 feet where we roped to to cross Inter Glacier. Inter Glacier is pretty small when compared to its neighbors Emmons and Winthrop but it has actually witnessed more rescue efforts because people tend to underestimate it. After the glacier we climbed down a little bit and followed the edge of Emmons Glacier around Steamboat Prow to the camp where we spent the rest of the day digging tent sites and building an elaborate kitchen that other climbers were happy to take over after we left.
News from returning climbers wasn't very encouraging as most of them hadn't made it to the summit due to high winds. Some of them even claimed that they had encountered -40 degrees / 60mph wind weather, which was obviously an exaggeration but still sounded worrisome. The night was also quite windy, and temperature in the tent fell to below 30 degrees Fahrenheit by the morning.

Sunday, July 3rd
Our second day was supposed to be spent mostly resting but simple daily activities like cooking and going to the bathroom take much longer than usual in a snow camp, so I didn't really get all that much idle time. Returning climbers were a bit more cheery this time, I think at least half of them had succeeded.
We also roped up for a while and had some crevasse rescue practice, the main outcome being proof that there's usually more than one way of doing everything and one shouldn't keep arguing over the methods as long as they work. I crawled into my sleeping bag between 6 and 7 pm but could not get any sleep as a new batch of climbers had arrived and they were loudly setting up camp right next to us. At least the wind had really quieted down and we didn't feel like it was trying to blow us away any more.

Monday, July 4th
We actually got up at 10pm the previous night, roped up by 11pm (Andre, Karen and John being the rope leads and Mountaineers intermediate climbing course grads, all others were Mountaineers Basic course students), and started slowly trodding up the hard snow. It was a little windy and chilly but nothing unbearable. In fact, my biggest problem was drowsiness as I hadn't slept at all and just kept following the rope without much understanding what was going on. The trail was pretty obvious, zigzagging between several 10 ft wide crevasses and crossing snow bridges over smaller ones. As we got higher, our speed kept dropping and we were taking short breaks more often but as I was the second last person in the whole team, I couldn't really see what was going on. Finally, at about 13,400 feet, Andre who had been leading, announced that he was too exhausted to continue and had to turn back. Also, John, another of our rope leads complained about a back problem and wanted to return too.
We spent about an hour debating our options and rearranging rope teams but in the end Mark, our MOFA leader volunteered to go back with Andre and John, and everybody else continued with Karen in the lead. Refreshed by the break, we moved up quite briskly and crossed the bergschrund, which turned out to be fairly easy at this time of year. And then suddenly, at about 8am, the magnificent view into Rainier crater opened up before us, a sight that suddenly outweighed all the pain and tiredness of two previous days.
The weather was still beautiful and even the wind wasn't too bothersome, so we spent an hour on the summit taking pictures, signing the register and congratulating each other. Curiously, no other group had taken the Emmons Glacier route on this day but we saw many people who had come up the south side (plus people that had already left before we arrived).
The return journey was marked by mental tiredness for me, my water bottle had frozen and sleepiness was getting the best of me, so Dan behind me kept nagging all the time because I kept fumbling over the rope and didn't notice smaller crevasses. Fortunately, we were able to glissade on the lower part of glacier and got back to the camp before I could get too dehydrated.
After a break and replenishing water supplies we started the descent over Inter Glacier. Afternoon sun was at its hottest and we were either knee-deep in slush or crossing ice patches covered with melt water. My leather boots which had been serving me really good until now were soaking wet by the time we got back to the trail. But who cares about a minor inconvenience like wet boots after climbing such a great mountain.

Approximate map of the climb route (large file!):

Our splits for different parts of the climb:

Leg	Elevation Gain/Loss (ft)	Time (hours)
White River CG - Camp Schurman	5100	7
Break	0	32
Camp Schurman - 10,000 ft	500	1
10,000 ft - 11,000 ft	1000	1
11,000 ft - 12,300 ft	1300	2
12,300 f - 13,400 ft	1100	2.5
Break	0	1
13,400 ft - Summit	1000	1.5
Break	0	1
Summit - 13,100 ft	-1300	1
13,100 ft - 12,300 ft	-800	1
12,300 ft - 11,200 ft	-1100	1
11,200 ft - Camp Schurman	-1700	1
Break	0	2.5
Camp Schurman - White River CG	-5100	3.5
Total:	10,000-10,000	59 hours

Pictures of the 07/04/05 climb: