by Kevin Cyr

I love this.

John, Andy, Michael, Christy, Andrew, Jeffrey, Jay, Mike (waiting for us at the ranger station), and myself begin our journey by leaving Seattle at 6 am and meeting up at a gas station just outside Mt. Rainier National Park at around 8 am.

Andy and Michael were the leaders of the trip, as both of them had summited before and are each excellent mountaineers.

prep log at White River Campground

my pack

Little Tahoma

I’ve never been somewhere where everywhere I turned I could have stopped for a day.

hot spots get addressed early

Glacier Basin & Inner Glacier

putting on our gaiters

John took that one. Obviously, I was very, very happy at this point.

Sidenote: I found that cap on the floor of one of my college classrooms my freshman year. If you owned this hat and you lost it in 2003 then you shouldn’t have lost it because it is awesome and no you can’t have it back.

John

Jay

practicing self-arrest

Andy & Michael

Finally, about 8 hours later, we arrived at Emmons Flats, just up about 100 feet from Camp Schurman.

Camp Schurman & Steamboat Prow

Emmons Flats (9,800 feet)

Jay & Andy

Andrew, Christy, and Andy melt snow for drinking water

awesome lenticular cloud

Ladies

Michael, doing some yoga at 10,000 feet.

No big deal.

We stayed a full day at base camp resting before we began our attempt for the summit. The climb from White River Campground to Emmons Flats is really rather difficult. It’s a steep, snowy trudge for 8 hours on a glacier, ascending about 5,000 feet in a very short distance. During our day of rest Andrew and Christy decided they would stay back at the Flats and not attempt to summit. The climb to base camp is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself, and it’s very likely that Andrew and Christy would have made the summit had they attempted it.

After a full day at base camp we went to bed around 6 pm, woke up at midnight, ate a bit of oatmeal, and began our 6-8 hour ascent at 1 am.

dawn cracks as Andy patiently leads the way

Mike, getting caught up in rope because he is a better and faster climber than the trudger in front of him.

But if there was a beard competition I’d totally kick his ass.

You hear that Mike? Yeah. Yeah. You stay down there in Portland.

You should probably move to Seattle. You can bring Becca.

Hi Becca.

Little Tahoma

White Privilege/Manifest Destiny Fact:

Mount Rainier was first known by the Native Americans as Talol, or Tacoma, from the Lushootseed word meaning “mother of waters” spoken by the Puyallup. Another interpretation is that “Tacoma”, effectively means “larger than Koma (Kulshan)”.^[29] (a name for Mount Baker).

At the time of European contact, the river valleys and other areas near the mountain were inhabited by many Pacific Northwest tribes who hunted and gathered berries in its forests and mountain meadows. These included the Nisqually, Cowlitz, Yakama, Puyallup, and Muckleshoot.

Captain George Vancouver reached Puget Sound in 1792 and became the first European to see the mountain. He named it in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier.^[32]

(source)

Vomit.

Also, Captain George Vancouver never actually climbed the mountain, and more disgustingly, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier never even saw the mountain, much less climbed it.

Summary: Natives climb and name the mountain. White man comes and renames it. Says, “Well, you can have the lower peak I guess.” Thus, Little Tahoma.

Mount McKinley: same story (Denali). Mount Adams, Baker, St. Helens, and pretty much every other mountain you can think of: same or similar story.

You’ll always be Mount Tacoma in my heart.

Ok. Sorry. Sort of. Gets you kind of worked up, right?

Back to the climbing.

sitting

Andy & Michael navigated us around insanely wide crevasses and intensely narrow ones. At some points I would step over a crack that was about two feet wide, but when I looked down I could see for hundreds of feet. It was nothing but ice and emptiness, completely terrifying and exciting at the same moment.

Andy took that one

an unnamed member of our team drops a deuce near the summit (and then carried it back down the mountain in a baggie)

Back at base camp after we descended, John was courageous enough to take all of our collective baggies from the two days to dispose of them at Camp Schurman, where they are airlifted out every so often.

(awesome)

Mike & Jay

Andy

The northern summit peaks in the background, not far below the actual summit where we stood.

There were large forest fires in Eastern Washington that weekend, so the sky had a pretty thick layer of smoke.

The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each over 1,000 feet in diameter. (source)

volcanic crater

log book at the summit

Jay

Mike

Jeffrey

John

Michael

Andy

me

Jeffrey

Jeffrey took that one

It was a wonderful 3 days. Everyone climbed very well and I was proud to be a part of that team of people.

Taking a trip for six months, you get into the rhythm of it. It feels like you can just go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that because you get all these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, you know, who pay $80,000 and have sherpas who put all the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes…you get to a camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag; it’s already laid out with a little chocolate mint on the top. And the whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain, but if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.

Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia Clothing

b

brb

Jeffrey carried Liam on his back for the entire hike up to Lake Melakwa. Liam was not excited at all.

The beginning of the hike takes you underneath the I-90.

Unhappy

Jack likes to lead, but he always checks back to make sure we’re not far behind.

Jack jumps in the water every chance he gets.

Lake Melakwa

Snow!

Liam, after a long hike and a good lunch

Liam (4 years old): Can I take a photo?
Me: Of course.
*click
(true story)

Jeffrey and I jumped in the lake, which is constantly fed by streams of snow all year round.

It was cold.

So did Jack.

Jack did so well. He still has floppy puppy paws (he’s 10 months old) but he’s growing into them.

After 2.5 hours we made it to the top. Jeffrey and I were carrying large packs with water jugs in them to weigh them down to about 40 lbs. for training. Campbell can’t climb Mother Rainier with us, so he only carried a day pack.

I loathed him the entire climb up.

Loathed.

Mount Rainier

The summit of Mount Si is just below the snow line, so looking straight across at Rainier we were below the snow.

Campbell, looking down on Seattle and the Puget Sound

a Gray Jay, eating some Beechers Cheese out of my hand

Campbell

Jeffrey

me with a Gray Jay and Mother Rainier in the background (Jeffrey took those two)

my forever friend (Jeffrey took those)

Here are a few video clips I took with my telephone.