Mt. Rainier, 14,410', Disappointment Cleaver route

Richard & Patsy Hughes, Nancy Harris and Tommy Ramsden
August 9-12, 2004

by Richard J. Hughes

Click on the above image to view more photographs from this climb

Schedule

None of us had ever attempted to climb Mt. Rainier before.

The incentive to climb Mt. Rainier came earlier this year when the Chofu Vikings, a high school alumni group from Japan, invited me to join their Pacific Northwest Reunion. They invited me to their reunion after I made a temporary discussion forum for them on one of my Internet domains. They normally use my discussion software, but their website was down. When I learnt that the reunion was to be held just ¼ mile west of the Nisqually Entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park I immediately thought that this would be a great opportunity to climb Mt. Rainier. When we mentioned to Nancy Harris that we planned to climb Mt. Rainier in August, she wanted to join us. Our British friend, Paul Johnson, who now lives in Vancouver, Canada, also said he'd like to join us. A month or so before the climb, however, Paul (who used to live in San Diego) flaked out, deciding that he couldn't take more vacation time after just coming back from a holiday in the U.K. Just ten days before we were due to fly to Seattle we met Tommy Ramsden at Dad's Café, a pub/restaurant in Poway where we regularly eat and drink after Wednesday evening climbing with Los Alpinistas. This particular Wednesday, however, Nancy, Patsy and I had been practicing prussiking so we only met the group for dinner. Tuck Russel introduced us to Tommy, who'd just arrived that morning from Sheffield, England, for a three week holiday in San Diego. When Tommy mentioned that he might fly to San Francisco to go climbing at Tuolumne, Patsy and I conferred and asked Tommy if he'd like to join us instead, and fly to Seattle to climb Rainier, figuring that he'd make a great replacement for Paul. "Oh yes", said Tommy with emphasis on the "yes". Only a few seconds later he added, "What's Rainier?" Tommy had never before hiked above 3,000'.

We sent in a permit reservation request for $140, $30 per person plus a $20 request fee, for four nights at Camp Muir beginning Monday 9th August.

We flew Southwest Airlines. At San Diego they forbade my taking the empty (and aired out for one week) fuel containers because they had once, "been in contact with gasoline". Fortunately, Stefan lives close to the airport and was able to swing by and pick up the empty fuel bottles. Otherwise we'd presumably have had to give, or throw, them away. Michael Moore, in "Farenheit 911", noted that butane cigarette lighters were permissible on the airlines, but he failed to document that completely empty fuel containers were not. We flew into Seattle at 10 pm Saturday night, picked up our Budget rental car and squeezed the gear and all four of us into the compact car for the hour-long drive to Snoqualmie, where Hugh Gundry (a Chofu Viking) had kindly invited us to spend the night at his house. Sunday morning, Hugh took us to see the Falls and we ate breakfast before heading to REI's flagship store in Seattle. We purchased two 30 oz. MSR fuel containers and a gallon of "white gas" along with some other personal items before driving south to "Paradise", Mt. Rainier. We spent the night at Cougar Rock Campground, at 3,180 ft. elevation, sorting gear and drinking beers.

Monday morning we finished packing our gear and arrived at the Paradise ranger station just before the 10 am deadline to claim our climbing permit. It had snowed on the mountain the previous Friday but the weather forecast for this week was all good. We began the long slog up the asphalt path from Paradise and thence onto the Muir snowfield. "I'll keep on going because you guys will catch up", said Nancy. Suffering under the heavy burden of our packs we finally arrived at Camp Muir, catching up with Nancy at last, and set up shelter in the gully just east of the ridge. Since the public shelter was closed for renovation this gully was a small encampment of tents, looking like the base camp for an expedition, which, effectively, is what it was. Parties of two to four climbers were setting up tents all over the gully. I'd neglected to bring my snow shovel, figuring that we'd be camping on dirt. We did have to camp on snow and, fortunately, there were many other parties who had brought snow shovels, so there was no problem borrowing a shovel. All four of us crowded into our 3 ~ 4 man tent, snug as bugs.

That night, as we lay in our sleeping bags, we were kept from sleeping for quite a while by the intermittent roar of rock fall. We couldn't always tell where this was coming from. Some of it may have been Nancy's snoring, or Tommy's farting, but at 1 or 2 am we watched the headlamps of an RMI group freeze, and then run across the Cowlitz Glacier.

The next morning the rangers and RMI guides were very blazé about the rockfall. "It happens all the time", they said. "But not usually from over there", they added, pointing in the vague direction of the path to Cathedral Gap. Uh, okay … I guess.

We spent the morning practicing self-arrest, belaying and walking as a rope team. Most of the afternoon was occupied by melting snow, enough for two quarts for each of us except Nancy, who carried a gallon. We ate an early dinner and got everything, including a Thermos full of coffee, ready for summit day. We lay down for bed around 5 pm, Tommy sleeping outside the tent. His choice.

We actually managed to catch at least a couple of hours' sleep before the alarm clock went off at 11 pm. We shuffled around, numbly, in the cold and dark of the night. Patsy awoke with a bad headache and said she wasn't sure she could do the climb. After taking half a tablet of aspirin + codeine she felt much better and had no further problems. We drank coffee, ate granola bars, visited the toilets, roped up and set off at 12.15 am. One party of two had set off before us, but most parties had headed over to Ingraham Flat the previous afternoon. I didn't want to camp there because you have to carry *everything* off the mountain. Blue bags vs. toilets. Blue bags vs. toilets. No contest. We roped up, me in front, then Tommy, Nancy, and Patsy in the rear. We had already scoped out the path across the Cowlitz glacier the day before, and crossed this uneventfully. The giant was still asleep and the sky was full of stars, i.e., there were no clouds. We threaded our way up and over Cathedral Gap and gazed down at the Ingraham Flat camp. Somewhat to my surprise we arrived at, and passed through, Ingraham Flat before anyone there was ready to leave.

At the base of Disappointment Cleaver we caught up with the party of two who had set off, ahead of us, from Camp Muir. They were intimidated by the transition from the glacier to the Cleaver, and offered me the lead. It did look intimidating. I couldn't see very far, even with a Halogen headlamp, but there was an obvious drop-off to the right, unscalable cliffs to the left and what appeared to be a snow bridge across a void straight ahead. We weren't going to stand there and wait for an RMI group to show us the way so Tommy put me on belay and over the bridge I went. Everyone followed. "That was a good lead", a member of the other party said. We were in good spirits as we wound our way up the Cleaver. It was laborious, however, and we were soon overtaken by a fast RMI group of three. "You should be traversing a few feet lower", said the guide, then added "I've only climbed this route a few hundred times". It was a first for me and, in the dark, it was never exactly obvious which way to go. The Cleaver reminded me of desert rock. It was a scree slope punctuated with rocky ledges. Down below we could now see what looked like a luminous centipede. There were dozens of headlamps moving across the Cowlitz Glacier many hundreds of feet below us.

"Wait up. Just a little bit slower." Nancy was getting tired and requested that we slow the pace. We caught up with the fast RMI group at the top of the Cleaver and stopped for a long break. Above us towered the snowy/icy summit cone. It was still pitch dark, as the moon was very feeble. Only 2,000 ft. to go.

We set off again, switch-backing up the snow. The crampon points bit into the icy crust, providing secure footing on the narrow path. The path was now clearly defined again, marked with wands and trodden by hundreds of feet. My headlamp died just as it became light enough to see. The rope tugged. "Just a little bit slower". We started to be passed by faster parties. I was secretly glad to slow the pace. "Umm, just a little bit slower". Soon we were doing an impression of pall bearers. Step, step, rest. Step, rest, step, rest. I was ever so glad to see the crater rim. We crossed the crater and unroped on the far (summit) side. We each huffed and puffed up to the true summit at our own pace. I was so focused on reaching the summit that I missed "Register Rock" and never did sign the register. It sure felt good to be on the summit. Expansive views. No more climbing uphill. Life was good. We lay down to rest and savour the ambiance.

On the summit I barely managed to eat a granola bar as I felt slightly nauseous. Tommy reported that he felt very nauseous.

I tried to talk Nancy, Patsy and Tommy into joining me on a traverse of the crater rim. I thought at least Tommy would join me, but the next time I looked round they were all three heading back the way we had come. Alone, then, I began to pick my way along the west rim of the crater. It wasn't so difficult, mostly on gravel. What snow there was, however, was rock-hard and I was glad of my crampons. I fell once, dropping onto one knee, as my crampon points slid off a rock. Inside the crater rim were the steamy entrances to the "fern caves", entrances to the icy cave system that weave a subterranean path beneath the summit ice. Outside the crater rim was the massive expanse of glaciers dropping away from the summit in every direction. Enormous blue crevasses split the glaciers.

I reached the others on the far side of the crater rim and we rested some more before starting down. Many parties, both private and RMI, were now ensconced within the crater rim. Soon enough it was time to rope up again. We chose to maintain the same rope order on the descent as on the ascent. The snow was by now noticeably soft and mushy as we began to descend. The snow balled up under our crampons. Only Nancy had anti-balling plates on her crampons, but she was still the slowest member of the team. The rope tugged. "Umm, just a little bit slower". Not again! I was in a hurry to descend, before the snow softened any more. It wasn't to be. Directly above the Cleaver we reached a junction. Three paths led away from this point and some argument ensued as to which to follow. I chose the lower right path. A short while later we reached a snow bridge over a crevasse. I didn't like the look of this bridge and opted to climb directly upwards to reach the higher path. We belayed up this steep section and across the upper section of the crevasse. At one point, when I put my foot down, I noticed the snow collapse underneath. I promptly retracted my foot and backed up. I stepped farther and warned the others. The path then led across a snow bridge spanning the largest crevasse on the route. Fortunately, this was an enormous bridge. Shortly thereafter we reached the top of Disappointment Cleaver where we met up with "The Whistlers", a party of three men who whistled when they exhaled. We couldn't figure this out and we should have asked, but we didn't. The Whistlers asked Patsy if she spoke any Japanese because there was a solo Japanese climber whom they were trying to dissuade from continuing up the glacier. Patsy managed to strike up a conversation with him. He did have a solo climbing permit and appeared quite competent. The snow was turning into mush, however, and none of us would have wanted to venture onto the glacier unroped. We think Patsy persuaded him to camp at the top of the Cleaver, but we weren't sure and he didn't follow us down. On the other hand he had a tent. He should have camped there and started up early the following morning.

Meanwhile, we unroped and began to descend the Cleaver. Tommy, Patsy and I took off our crampons, whereas Nancy kept hers on. After about 20 feet, however, Nancy also removed her crampons. Tommy bounded off down the Cleaver like a mountain goat. I followed not far behind, but then felt obliged to stop and wait after a few hundred feet for Patsy and Nancy to catch up. Tommy reached the bottom of the Cleaver and tied in to The Whistlers' rope to cross the Ingraham and Cowlitz glaciers. I stopped and waited, every few hundred feet, for Patsy and Nancy to catch up. The descent was painfully slow.

At the bottom of the Cleaver we roped up again. Nancy suggested that here, below the unstable cliff wasn't a good place to stop, but I pointed out that one could at least see the rocks should any come down. The crevasses, on the other hand, could be hidden. We tied in as fast as we could (of course, since we were in a hurry, the rope got tangled) and scurried away. Crossing a crevasse near the top of Ingraham Flat one of Patsy's legs broke through the snow and she sank to her waist ... then stopped. I was watching her crossing the bridge when she almost disappeared. My heart skipped a beat. I had overheard a woman the previous evening recounting how she had fallen into a crevasse. Patsy climbed out, but I had already driven my ice axe into the snow.

Below Ingraham Flat we had to regain the lower slopes of Cathedral Rock. This stretch had clearly been pelted by rockfall and I was anxious to cross as fast as possible. The rope tugged. "Umm, just a little bit slower". I was fit to be tied, which, in point of fact, was my situation. The pace was torturously slow, but the giant slumbered still. It wasn't until we had reached camp that we saw a section of the wall collapse above the path. Tommy, who had reached camp about an hour earlier and was lying in the tent, told us that he had had a close shave with two large rocks that came down. I haven't heard of anyone being hit by falling rock on this route, but it could happen.

We were lucky to have such good weather, although we were prepared to stay at Camp Muir for an extra day if we had to postpone our climb. As it was, we used this extra day's food to spend one more night at Camp Muir before descending the mountain.

I had carried a compass, Thommen altimeter, GPS with the approximate route pre-entered and both Patsy and I carried tri-band (6m , 2m, 70cm) Amateur Radio transceivers. We didn't have to use any of this equipment. I had a Black Diamond dual light-source headlamp, that provided both an LED and a voltage-regulated halogen light. I found it very difficult indeed to pick out the route with the LED. The relatively powerful, halogen light was very helpful in picking out the route, but it dies without any warning. The LED uses a separate Lithium battery. I carried an extra set of six AA batteries (and four more for the digital camera), but didn't need them. We also had ascenders and pulleys but, happily, didn't need to effect any crevasse rescues.

Back at camp we were all very tired and lay down for a while. The warmth of the sun had left our tent sitting atop a 5" platform of snow. Tommy leveled this platform off, and built up the perimeter, while I set some water boiling to make dinner. After dinner, I again lay down inside the tent and suggested we postpone eating dessert until breakfast. I was tired. Tommy was by now quite chipper, however, and offered to make dessert in exchange for a joke from each of us. Only Nancy could come up with a joke, but it was an ethnic New York joke and no one but Nancy could understand it. Tommy fed us dessert nevertheless. We slept that night like four logs, unashamedly exhausted.

Thursday morning we awoke at 7.30 or so and set to work melting snow and eating breakfast. The snow around the tent was like an ice rink. We slipped and skidded our way around the tent, packing up our gear. Nancy polled everyone she could find as to whether or not to wear crampons on the way down. Tommy and I had told her not to because the snow had already softened up, but she decided to wear them anyway, at least for a hundred feet. Of course, you can't glissade with crampons on. Tommy and I had already taken off down the Muir snowfield before Patsy managed to persuade Nancy to glissade, rather than walk down. We glissaded, but only in discontinuous sections, joined by flatter areas through which we had to walk. Here and there were icy patches on the glissade run. "My feet are wet and my bum hurts", I complained. "But look at you", said Tommy, "you're grinning from ear to ear". Yeah, it was good fun.

Tommy and I waited on a rock, for Patsy and Nancy, just after the path changed from snow to gravel. Another climber came by and told us that they weren't far behind. We spotted them. Patsy's red polypro top and Nancy's yellow helmet were clearly visible, even from a distance. We watched curiously as Patsy walked to the top of the last, steep snow slope. This was a snow slope that Tommy and I had walked down. Patsy sat down, however. "No way, she's going to do it". All of a sudden she pushed off from the top of the slope, accelerated downhill and shrieked from the sheer joy of it. When they'd caught up with us we asked her why she glissaded there. Another climber had just hiked back up the slope so he could repeat that glissade. He had told Patsy, "You just climbed Rainier; you can do this". So she did, and she had a blast. That will be our inspirational catch phrase for a while, I'm sure..

Back at the Paradise parking lot we signed out from the climb with Asha Anderson, the pretty climbing Ranger who'd climbed Liberty Ridge. Asha's a babe. In November 1999 Asha broke both her ankles and some ribs when she lost her footing and fell off the Gibralter Ledges during a search for some missing climbers. She and her two rope companions fell 600' down 45 degree water-ice. Asha recommended we eat lunch at the Paradise Inn. This was an excellent lunch and so I too highly recommend eating there. We spent some time at the visitor center before heading down the road, leaving the Park, and joining the Chofu reunion.

We had just left one adventure to start another …

Speed and safety
Neither Nancy nor Tommy had ever done any mixed (rock, snow, ice) mountaineering before. Nancy is a strong hiker who has climbed to the summit of several California Fourteeners, including Mt. Whitney, almost made it to the summit of San Jacinto from Palm Springs in a day, multiple times (an 11,000' elevation gain), and has done many tough hikes with me and Patsy. Tommy, on the other hand, is a rock jock who'd never before hiked above 3,000 ft. and eschews exercise, but is almost half our ages. Patsy and I decided that we should be at the ends of the rope team. I led because I've got the most experience. Tommy took to mountaineering like a duck takes to water. Nancy was the weakest member of the team. This is not meant as a slight, as it's inevitable that someone will be the weakest member of the team. I'd have felt a lot more comfortable, however, if we'd been able to get down faster. As it was, both the ascent and descent took 8 hours, although I'm including the time spent on the summit in the descent time. The actual descent probably took 7 hours, which was still painfully slow. Speed is safety. Looking at the photographs, I note that Patsy forgot to redon her climbing helmet on the way down. Nancy and I put ours back on at the top of Disappointment Cleaver. Not only did Patsy forget, but neither Nancy nor I noticed. This wasn't very clever.

Dehydration
I only drank ¾ of a liter of water on the actual summit climb. Just before the climb I drank a cup of coffee and a cup of water. Patsy and I normally drink much less than the average hiker/climber, but I think this was too little for me. I felt okay that day and the next, but on Thursday night, after drinking a couple of beers and a few glasses of Whisky at the Chofu reunion, I couldn't sleep. On Friday morning I felt terrible. I drank a strong cup of coffee and felt even worse. I waved Nancy, Patsy, Tommy and Paul good-bye as they set off on another hike. I stayed at the lodge and set about rehydrating. I think I drank two gallons of juice and water before I perked up. In retrospect we should have taken more soup, hot chocolate and Gookinaid. I find it really difficult to drink large quantities of water. Patsy also drank only ¾ of a liter of water on the summit climb yet she suffered no ill after effects.

Fuel, food and boots
We carried two full 30 oz fuel bottles to Camp Muir and used about 45 oz. fuel, mostly to melt snow. Several other parties ran short of fuel. Melting snow consumes a prodigious amount of fuel. We had provisioned three ("serves two") freeze-dried meals for the four of us for each night, along with soup and a dessert. This was a barely adequate amount of food. We could have used more soup, coffee, and hot chocolate. Southwest Airlines at San Diego refused to allow the completely empty fuel bottles on the plane. At Seattle airport they didn't even ask, but I'd already left them with a friend. We all wore comfortable, medium-weight leather hiking boots (I used my old Nordic ski boots). My feet got a bit wet, especially on the last day when we glissaded, but none of us had any major foot problems. Tommy suffered a small blister on one of his heels, but he had bought a new pair of boots in San Diego only a few days before the climb.

RMI
This climb, which we undertook in 3 ½ days, Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (RMI) normally does in 2 gruelling days, for $775 per client. On the first day they climb to Camp Muir, waken around midnight to climb to the summit and back to the hut, then pack up their gear and descend the mountain. RMI schedules climbs to increase their profitability rather than to increase their clients' chances of success. There is only so much space in the RMI hut at Muir Camp and this schedule allows maximum turnover. You can book a 4 day, 3 night climb, but this costs $1,340 per person. Chi-ching! RMI appears to encourage their clients to rent plastic boots (for an extra $30). We passed many guided groups in which the guides were wearing Tevas and their clients were wearing plastic boots. There's no refund if you have to hobble back down because of blisters. The RMI guides who've led the most clients to the summit get the pick of the crop. They go around the room, asking the clients what kind of shape they're in and what their conditioning regimen has included, but their only real screening is to see how fast the clients make the ascent to Camp Muir. They appear to take the weaker clients, or perhaps it was the 4 day trip clients, further up to camp on Ingraham Flat for a head start to the summit. Our climb was made much more enjoyable by following our own, more relaxed schedule. Had we followed the RMI schedule we'd likely have suffered much worse nausea and headaches. Besides, we didn't just want to climb the mountain. We wanted to savour the experience. RMI does a great job marking the trail, for which I was very grateful. There's no way we'd have been able to proceed above the Cleaver in the dark without their trail to follow. It's very doubtful whether we'd even have been able to proceed across Ingraham Flat in the dark, without the RMI trail.

Comments?

• Thu Aug 19 '04 Nice job Richard!!! Awesome opening shot!!! Hugh Gundry (58) {3}
• Fri Aug 20 '04 No title! Debbie Dalton (39) {3}
• Sat Aug 21 '04 good work guys! Dan Greig-Smith (31) {3}
• Wed Aug 25 '04 Mt Rainer story and story and story and story and story!! Heather K Murray (50) {3}
• Tue Aug 31 '04 Flatulence Tommy (49) {3}
• Tue Aug 31 '04 Smashing, Brilliant, Hear Hear! Hank Ratzesberger (28) {3}
• Sat Sep 4 '04 From babe to pretty? Deb (57) {4}
• Sun Sep 5 '04 Re: From babe to pretty? Richard J. Hughes (46)

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