I'm pretty well traveled and i have covered a lot of the northwest. Camp Muir is probably the most prominent location in the region that i've never been to. Tahoma, Mount Rainier, looms over western Washington like a friend, or a benevolent parent. At 14,410 feet, it is visible almost everywhere, views popping up around every corner; the surrounding mountains are 5,000 to 7,000 so it is head and shoulders above everything else. It is such an important part of the daily fabric of our lives here that most people just call it The Mountain. Capitol T, Capitol M. Most of the time we only see it from a great distance, 100 miles or more away. The idea of spending a day on The Mountain, on snow, at elevation, was appealing.
I really liked the idea of undertaking this epic climb with my friends, but i was also worried. I was certain i couldn't keep up with Dave. He's been training seriously and is very fit. I bicycle a lot, but actually i'm fat, old and out of shape. (Since Dave & Julie are both older than me i guess i can't claim the old). In addition, Camp Muir is at 10,000 feet. I've never hiked that high; and the last couple of times i've been up to 6,500 feet (Nadine's camp at Blewitt Pass) i've gotten a little altitude sickness.
I'm more of a hiker than a climber. I enjoy experiencing the forest and the mountains immensely, but i have no need to bag peaks. Hiking in the wilderness is the reason i decided to stay in Seattle 20 years ago and for ten years or so hiking was a regular, important, part of my life. But sadly i have only been hiking once or twice a year for the last few years, and none of them were strenuous. So this was something i was looking forward to.
On a Saturday at the very end of July, we started the day with a short, early morning hike through the city to the Zip Car followed by a long, frustrating, drive to the mountain. It was cloudy and drizzly as we wove through the lightly populated foothills. Every time i go down there i think about how wonderful it would be to have a train system. Riding the train to Mount Rainier National Park would be the ideal way to go -- comfortable, relaxing, beautiful and available to all.
During the long drive, i started to really worry that I didn't have enough clothing. That was mostly because i don't hike frequently anymore. In the 1990s i kept a backpack ready to go, packed with all i would need for an overnight hike, so i could just grab it and go. I couldn't forget anything, it was already packed! Packing this time took some effort, collecting things from the hiking boxes and bicycling clothing -- i wasn't extremely confident.
I wore a base layer, a wool shirt, hiking shorts and mountaineering boots with gators. I also carried a heavy poly turtleneck, fleece vest, wool jacket, wool sweater, waterproof anorak, gloves, wool hat and rain paints. I could've used another pants layer for emergencies: it can get very cold very quickly in at elevation. In the end was just fine, but i spent some time stressing. I like to pack for an uncomfortable unexpected overnight and i wasn't prepared for that; but i was well set for this hike, even if the weather turned.
I wanted to take my smaller pack, i have two good day packs, a small one and a very large one. The small one almost worked, but i couldn't figure a way to lash my ice axe to it, so i went with the big one.
As we approached The Mountain and began to gain elevation we drove out from under the clouds; when we entered the National Park at Ashford the bright morning sun was shining through the giant cedar trees, the thick, dark temperate rainforest cut with rays of bright sunshine occasionally reaching down to the ferns and salal. It's really beautiful. We drove through the forest, along the raging Nisqually river, and then started going steeply up the mountain, higher and higher, eventually to 6,000 feet.
Although quite familiar, the view of Tahoma is so astonishing it's almost shocking. We came out of the forest and suddenly realized we were working our way up the shoulder of a three mile high volcano! All i can do when it comes into view is utter that powerful Salish native name: Tahoma!
We parked at Paradise, the primary visitor's center for Mount Rainier National Park. It is a staggeringly gorgeous place. There aren't many places like that anywhere, but there are certainly none that you can drive to. Most require a multi-day hike. The air is thin and the tundra is gorgeous, filled with wildflowers in the short summer, and 10s of feet of snow in the winter. There are astonishing views of the mountain range all around, and, oh yeah, a giant volcano covered with 23 glaciers looms overhead!
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| Joe Tamura and i at Inspiration Point in Mount Rainier National Park 7-26-2012 |
I don't have a photo from Paradise that day, but i had just been to The Mountain on Thursday as a HAM radio operator on a bicycle event. So here's a photo from two days previous of me with the bike mechanic i was working with. It was taken at Inspiration Point about 1,000 feet below Paradise. The lenticular cloud, which is so characteristic of Tahoma, was not there the day of our climb.
It's hard to comprehend just how popular Paradise is. I once saw a statistic that said that 2/3 of visitors to Mount Rainier National Park don't get more than 100 feet from their car and more than 1/3 never even step out of their car!
At 8am on this sunny summer Saturday the parking lot at Paradise was already teeming with thousands of people, and most of the Seattle people had not yet arrived. They come from Tacoma, from Seattle, and from other parts of the country and all around the world. We heard a half a dozen or more different languages.
The majority were probably just peeking into the visitor's center or taking a 20 minute walk. But many were there for a serious hike and a lot were hoping to summit the mountain. Reaching the summit is a multi-day undertaking and the place where most of those climbers spend the night is Camp Muir. That's where we hoped to reach today.
We didn't waste any time. We ate a little as we pulled our boots on, then quickly got our packs settled and walked off, heading up steeply. Julie and i were going to be slower than Dave, but he was carrying more weight. He told us he was carrying several gallons of water make his pack heavier for training.
The trail as it leaves Paradise is actually asphalt for the first half mile or so, before it turns to dirt. It's a little odd walking (in hiking boots) on asphalt as you cross through the tundra, but it, and the rope barriers along the trail, are essential for the preservation of that glorious but fragile area, considering the astonishing amount of foot traffic that it gets. There is an old climbers aphorism that Dave shared with us that says that the number of people on the trail decreases with the square of the distance and the cube of the elevation. Lots of people at first, very quickly the least fit turn back, soon almost everyone does. The thing i've noticed in the past is the litter. The closer you are to a trail head, the more candy wrappers you see. When you are REALLY close you see cigarette butts.
I felt the low oxygen immediately. I had a pack and big boots, so i was working harder than in the city, and the elevation gain was very significant. But the oxygen level at Paradise is about 75% or 80% of sea level and with every step the air was getting thinner. Luckily i didn't get any of the symptoms of altitude sickness that i was worried about.
Very quickly, before we even got off the asphalt, we all stopped to take off our jackets. A few minutes later i changed into my wool shirt and didn't really change any layers for the rest of the day. We didn't put on sun screen in the parking lot, but we all did at that first stop just a short way up the trail. The sunscreen, hat and sunglasses were essential for this hike. Of course it is required on the snow, it's dangerous without, but even those first couple of hours the sun was very intense.
Just below Panorama Ridge we saw a marmot. No surprise that it blended in well with the tundra. I wouldn't have noticed if Julie didn't point it out. It was very cute when it looked up at us. I think it was smaller than the one i saw in the Olympics with my brother. (The Olympic Marmot is Washington State's official endemic mammal!) I like marmots.
As usual, click on any photo to see it full size.
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| A Marmot on the tundra at Mt Rainier | The Marmot looks at the camera |
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| Paul staring down a Marmot above Heart Lake in the Olympic Mountains, August 1995. |
The first 3 miles, climbing 1,900 feet, was on dirt trails along sharp ridgelines through gorgeous tundra: thick heather sprinkled with colorful wild flowers. We tried to identify the different wild flowers, and occasionally asked other hikers for flower names. We were gaining elevation so fast, every few minutes we would encounter a different set of flowers, later bloomers. Over the course of the three hours up to the snow field we probably went through 4 or more entirely different levels of flower species. It was cool.
The dirt trails are fairly narrow (and so are the paths through the snowfield). We occasionally had to step aside while people passed us going up, or we passed people. We also had to make way for people going down. Before the snowfield the only people coming down were people who had attempted the summit overnight and not made it. One group told us that they turned around before the summit because they had a problem with altitude sickness.
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| Panorama Ridge |
Step by step we climbed higher and higher. Occasionally we would hear a strong low rumble which could've been confused with thunder. It fired off alarm bells for me from my days hiking these mountains. I was sure it was an avalanche. The first couple of times it happened i stopped to survey the slopes above us and to the sides, but i didn't see any evidence. After the third big rumble Dave pointed out that it was probably the giant Nisqually Glacier moving; groaning, breaking and scraping as it very, very slowly slides downhill!
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| Mt Rainier, Julie, Dave at Glacier Vista |
The Mountain is amazing -- so big, so close, it really feels like you can touch it. I stared at it and i felt certain i could just scamper up to the summit. It looked like it would take about 15 minutes. It's deceiving because Tahoma is just so astonishingly big. At that point it was still almost three MILES away and more than 7,000 feet above us but it didn't feel like it. It felt close.
Near the end of the Pebble Creek trail, just below the start of the Muir Snowfield we saw another marmot, and this one was glissading! While we were walking by a patch of snow on the steep ridge, the marmot walked off the rocks, onto the snow, and belly flopped down on to the snow, and then spread it's legs. I suspect it was just cooling off in the intense sun, but it looked like it was trying to have fun sliding down the slope!
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All photos enlarge. Click on these photos to see the marmot better.
We were all feeling pretty good when we got to the snowfield at 7,300 feet I pulled out my ice axe and started up the steps that had been kicked by many people ahead of us. We followed the boot tracks.
The sun was hot and the snow was pretty soft, not terribly slippery. The trail was marked by occasional orange flags. Visibility was excellent today, but if weather closed in, and it can do so fast on this mountain, those flags would be our only guide. We took tiny steps. I had been doing a little pressure breathing before the snowfield, but now I started in earnest. This is a mountaineering practice where you exhale strongly, emptying your lungs, which then forces a big lungful of fresh air into your lungs. It really works. You could hear people around you doing it.
We were not alone, and i'm not talking about the marmots. We were told at Paradise that Camp Muir averages 900 people a day, and even more in July -- that's easy to believe with what we saw on this warm weekend. There were surely many more than that on the trail we took up the snowfield, and below the snow line two easier trails split off: The Skyline Trail and The Panorama Ridge trail. Each of those trails had at least as many people on them. There were lots of people coming up, some poorly prepared in jeans and tennis shoes others with major expedition packs ready for an overnight and an attempt at the summit tomorrow or the next day. Some were in teams, some alone, some going at their own pace, others with a group leader urging them on. People were very supportive of each other, offering encouragement and conversation. I don't know how to say this appropriately, but I was blown away by how many extremely good looking women were on the mountain.
While we never felt overwhelmed by people, there were always many people around us and looking down, or up, we could see a lot of people climbing the snowfield. At times it almost looked like we were heading up the Chilikoot Trail, like in the legendary historic photo.
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| Chilikoot trail photo from late 1890s taken from Wikipedia |
We were taking it seriously, it's a difficult, potentially dangerous hike. Backpacker Magazine called it one of the 10 most dangerous because of it's accessibility, difficulty and extreme, sudden weather. A week after our hike, a body was pulled out of the snowfield right around where we got up onto it. The climber had been caught in a storm in January.
I was going pretty slowly. It was very hard. Most of the Muir snowfield is a 30% grade, with some areas reaching 40%. The climb itself was hard, but the low oxygen was a huge challenge. Although i felt a little bad about holding him back, Dave stayed with me until just before lunch when he wanted to get in a bit of a sprint to test his fitness. We picked a rock outcropping where we would eat and he sped ahead, with me and Julie plodding along slow and steady behind. I appreciated Julie's support. It's so much easier (and more fun) to hike with someone else, and in that hour before lunch i was really starting to struggle. I started to wonder if i was going to make it all the way.
We stopped on the rocks for lunch; this was at about 8,200 feet elevation. It was a welcome rest. We'd been on the trail about 4 hours at that point. I wolfed down my sandwich and shared my cookies with Dave and Julie as well as the people around us, one of who took our photo. I was trying to conserve water enough to make it last the day, but i drained one bottle at lunch.
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| Lunch at 8,200 feet. |
It was very warm, none of us needed a jacket during the break. Before we set out again we did all make an effort to put on more sunscreen. I hate the stuff and try to avoid using it as much as i can, but there was no way around it today. I tried to make sure i got full coverage including places i wouldn't normally think of: back of neck, under my chin, legs, backs of knees. There were more than a few people on the mountain who had their whole head wrapped in a turban leaving only glasses and mouth visible. I think that was a good idea!
Lunch felt too short even at 35 minutes. I was tired and wanted more rest, but mostly I wanted to catch my breath and at that elevation I just couldn't do that. I did give Dave some weight from my pack, some food and clothing, to help his training. (Actually to lighten my load! I really appreciated it.)
When we set off again Dave and Julie got well ahead of me and for 15 minutes or so i was going it alone. Most of the day we stayed together but at this point i was struggling. Before lunch i had been taking a lot of short (3 minute) breaks so afterwards i started trying to rest for 3 or 4 seconds every 8 or 10 steps, just trying to keep a steady pace.
However, quite soon after lunch I started to reach my limit. I became more and more certain that I wasn't going to make it all the way. I was ok with that. I could see another rock outcropping ahead. After that it appeared to be a right turn and a long slog up and over the ridge. Several people had said that once over that ridge you could see Camp Muir but it was an hour away. I decided that I would stop at the outcropping ahead and wouldn’t continue beyond, that... I just didn't have it in me.
I couldn't believe how weak the low oxygen made me. I really needed a break, Dave and Julie waited for me, which i was very grateful for, but once we were moving together again i did feel like i was holding them back. Julie insisted my pace was the pace she wanted to go, and Dave was just testing his fitness so he didn't feel a need to go faster. I was just pushing on. It was one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life.
By this time i was really focusing on 6 steps and rest. Six steps, breathe on each step. Six steps then 4 seconds rest, six steps, rest. I was pretty thrilled to make that rock outcrop i that had seen so far away; i figured this might be my end point. The view was astonishing from that elevation. Mount Adams was well above the clouds and a lot of the sawtooth peaks of the Tattosh range were visible far below us. We rested on the rocks, ate cookies and they convinced me to continue.
Dave went out ahead a little, and Julie and i continued, 6 steps and rest, 6 steps and rest. But i was really getting exhausted. About 15 minutes after our break my legs actually gave out. They involuntarily crumpled and i just fell down on the snow. I didn't slide much, but i collapsed. I rested a bit and I was very pleased that Julie waited with me. I wanted badly to make it to Camp Muir, and i didn't care about being slow. But i just didn't think i could do it.
Julie really encouraged me. She got me to continue. When I started walking again, i decided to do five steps instead of six. This made a huge difference! Breathe on each step, five steps then rest for 5 seconds; five more steps, pressure breathing, rest. As i got into this pattern, i thought of something my amazing NOLS instructor Glenn Goodrich had taught me in Alaska in 1992: i started locking my knee on that short rest every fifth step.
That made all the difference in the world. Within 10 minutes I was feeling stronger and not needing to take the regular 3 minute breaks. I was on a steep slope. Each 5 second rest was with my weight on my downhill leg. The odd number of steps meant that I was resting on a different leg each time so each leg got rested equally. With an even number of steps, i was always standing on the same leg! Locking my knee shifted my weight to my skeleton and off my muscles. Even just a few seconds taking the weight off gave my muscles, and lungs, an important rest. I kept saying "Thank You Glen Goodrich!" out loud. I didn't have the breath to explain it to Julie until later.
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| Julie takes in the majesty of Tahoma |
Five steps. Rest. Five steps. Rest. It was hard work, but i was much more comfortable. Julie kept up the same pace, I held her back a little, but mostly we kept the same pace. And although I didn't pass many people and a lot of people passed me, I have to say that an awfully lot of people were going about the same pace as me and some turned back. Dave was chomping at the bit and got ahead of us a couple times but mostly we all stayed together.
We didn't ever make that right turn that we were all expecting, and that worried me because i knew it was still an hour, or more, past that right turn. As we ascended further a small black building came in to view. It didn't look like what i thought Camp Muir would look like and Dave said it didn't look at all like he remembered it from his summit ascent years ago. I asked Dave if there was a chemical toilet on that ridge like there is on Panorama Ridge. He said he didn't remember it, but it was possible. We discussed it a little, with what little breath we had, but we all assumed it was a new toilet on the ridge we had to go over.
That meant Camp Muir was at least a hour more from when we finally reached that distant point. I was walking easier, but i also knew there was no way i was going to make it past that ridge and no convincing was going to change that. It would be great to get to Camp Muir, but that ridge was my end point, if i even made that. I'd wait there for them while they covered the last hour or so. We pushed on, the three of us together, resting for about 5 seconds every 5 or 7 steps, sometimes even 11, but always odd numbers. By this point the oxygen was only 67% of what it is at sea level. I have small lungs.
For over an hour we slowly approached the black structure, all continuing to discount any idea that it could be our destination. As we got to within a few hundred yards we saw some tents out on the snow. This suggested that this might actually be Camp Muir, but even then I didn't get my hopes up. Dave went ahead to check it out for us, and he quickly left us behind.
Julie and i continued, probably another half an hour of 5-steps-and-rest. When I was about 50 yards away i realized that i really had made it to Camp Muir! I was thrilled. I thought for a second about just sprinting on in. That did not work. Five steps, and rest, the whole way in. We had ascended 4,700 feet, almost 3,000 on snow. It was 3 pm, so it had taken about 7 hours. I was very happy to be there.
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| I made it to Camp Muir! |
Dave came down to meet us and we walked up on to the rocky ridgeline that is Camp Muir. It's not as protected as i expected. A high rock formation on the south (my right) and the upslope on the north, but really just a ridge. You are really in climbers territory here. Rope teams are required beyond camp and even within camp on the other side of the ridge.
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| You must rope up beyond Camp Muir. |
There are two low stone buildings that i wish i had had the presence of mind to take a photo of; they are very pretty, . One is a partially enclosed public shelter that can sleep about 2 dozen people, the other is a storage unit for a mountaineering guide service. The black thing we'd been seeing is an ugly black shipping container used for storage and scientific instruments. They are hoping to replace it. A compact 'A' frame is a private shelter. There are also a handful of toilets. Everything is helicoptered in or out, including the waste from the toilets. In the deep snowfield on the other side of the ridge were lots and lots of tents, many almost completely buried by drifting snow. There were 2 or 3 hundred people at Camp Muir: resting, setting up camp, practicing rope teams, sleeping.
I was proud of my accomplishment. I was really thrilled to be there, it was a new place for me and true northwest credibility! Despite the difficulty, i really enjoyed the climb. And the view is unparalleled.
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| Julie at Camp Muir with Mount Adams and the Tattosh Range |
Once we were up on the ridge at Camp Muir, Dave pulled out a watermelon! He had carried a watermelon all the way up the mountain. It was a small one, but still, what a great thing to do!! I think his climb in Wyoming will go fine, he's fit! He cut it open and we sat at 10,200 feet eating watermelon taking in the view! It was amazing.
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| Dave carried a watermelon to 10,200 feet! |
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| Mark, Dave & Julie eating watermelon at Camp Muir! |
We spent about an hour relaxing on the ridge and taking in the view. We were quite comfortable up there in our long sleeve hiking shirts. If i had to guess the temperature i would've said about 75. None of us put on jackets. When i got home i checked the data from the Camp Muir weather station and it was 43 degrees between 3 and 4pm. The sun was just so intense, the radiated heat made it feel much warmer. We were lucky the infamous wind did not kick up. It not only would've made hiking harder, but it would've gotten very cold very fast.
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| Mount Adams and the Tattosh Range from Camp Muir. |
I would've loved to stay there, and it would be great fun to sleep there, but we had a major descent to make and i was already near complete exhaustion. We made sure to put more sunscreen on. Julie considered not and i encouraged her to do so. The thin air, intense sun and reflection off the snow will just burn you up.
After climbing 3,000 feet up a snowfield, you kind of want to glissade down -- slide on your butt. You feel like you've earned it. And it gets you down really fast. That was a big reason why I brought the rain paints. I put them on and as soon as i was back on the snow, i sat down. I didn't move at all. I had my ice axe in self arrest position, which also works as a rudder, but i wasn't sliding.
When you think about it, there is a formula that you could calculate for glissading. The slope steepness has to exceed the snow stickiness. It didn't. I started trying to push myself with the ice axe, but it was like rowing a boat. Pushing myself through the snow was much more tiring than just walking, and i was already whipped. I gave up quickly and stood up. Julie did too. Dave didn't try to glissade because he wanted to walk the full distance for his test of climbing fitness. An alternative to glissading is plunge steps: leaning down slope and driving your heal into the soft snow creating a stride much longer, perhaps 2 or three times as long as a normal stride. I started plunge stepping down from Camp Muir.
The slope was so steep in places that it looked like a cliff. Dave, ahead of us, appeared to be standing on the precipice, but was actually just walking downhill.
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| Dave descends the Muir snowfield |
Mostly we plunge stepped, but Julie and i kept trying and trying to glissade. I probably tried about ten or eleven times. Part of the problem was that the snowfield was wide and there were dozens of trails where people had glissaded, or tried to. If everyone had slid down the same trail it would've made a fast, deep, icy track like a bobsled run. But they didn't. However, three or four times, mostly down low where the snow field gets narrow (and lots of people used the same tracks) i got some good, fast, long glissades. Still not like the screaming descents i'm familiar with from Mount Ellinor, but a big help covering the distance down the snowfield. And lots of fun!
Dave stayed ahead of us, making faster progress for the first half of the snowfield, but we passed him, sliding fast, on the lower part. Towards the bottom of the snowfield, visibility started to become a concern. The sun was still really intense, but the cloud layer below, that we had driven out of hours ago, was rising and could potentially rise enough to overwhelm us. That meant that keeping aware of the boot tracks, but especially the (rather sparse) trail blaze flagging became very important. Also, since my GPS had recorded our climb up the snowfield, we would've been able to use it to follow the same path down should visibility drop to zero, but you never want to depend on a GPS unit, especially at that kind of elevation.
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| The bottom of the snowfield. |
The clouds reached us right as we got to the bottom of the snowfield, we were pretty socked in for the rest of the descent. There were even more people on the trail, mostly coming up, in the afternoon. And all of them were unprepared for hiking. Despite looking bedraggled and completely exhausted, or maybe because of it, we got stopped and asked for directions or advice half a dozen times, which we were happy to help with. Of course the mountain was not visible at that point so when these tourists asked, we pointed to where it would've been seen if the clouds were not there. I love the clouds, but i did feel bad for the tourists. I can't imagine having to imagine that mountain. It far exceeds anything the imagination can create.
The square of the distance and cube of the elevation. We could tell how close to the parking lot we were getting as the crowds grew larger, and the shoes got worse. Pretty soon we could see candy wrappers, and then, even cigarettes. Now we KNEW we were close!
The last mile, down a steep hill on asphalt trail, took a lot of motivation. I was really, really ready to be done. I just pictured a short walk in my neighborhood, a mile to the ice cream shop, and followed it block by block in my head.
We were happy to get down into the crowd at the parking lot at Paradise, almost exactly 11 hours after leaving. We refilled water bottles, (the soft ones were crushed as if by a giant hand!). We threw away the garbage we had collected on the hike -- and i even turned in a shoe and a couple of other things to the Rangers for a potential lost and found.
Dave didn't have much sunburn, but Julie's face was very burned. I was mostly in good shape, but there were are a few places i missed. I missed the sides of my knees, and got a little sunburn there. I missed the backs of my hands and had a small patch of sunburn there. And i didn't put sunscreen insides my ears; i got the tops and outsides, but not the insides! They were so badly burned my ears were misshapen for a couple of days.
The GPS map says we walked 9.3 miles and climbed 4,700 feet. I wore a pedometer that counted my steps, and it said i walked enough steps for 16.5 miles! The difference is because my steps were so small when climbing. When glissading, i missed a lot of steps, and my plunge steps were longer than usual, i probably took enough steps to, at a normal stride, walk 18 miles!
Julie drove us back to Seattle. I was extremely tired. I was very glad i didn't have to drive. I still wished it was a train, none of us would have had to drive tired... Wouldn't it be great to be able to play cards, eat, and nap on the train ride home? The car ride was long and i was happy to get home. I could barely get out of the car (my legs failed on the first attempt). I really appreciated the thick gooey air filled with oxygen! I slept a long time, and i felt fine the next day. I could feel it in my legs a little, but just walking the neighborhood stretched that out.
