At the Summit of Mount Rainier

Intro

I summited Mount Rainier in August 2023, specifically 9-12 August. I started training way too early on November ‘22. Felt like the more I train the more I’d enjoy the trip. You know things are way more enjoyable when you’re not dying. Realistically I started in January then went on a trip in march so I couldn’t train at all that month.

My training was anything but planned. Being early made me lazy so I never followed a plan even though I wanted to and should have. I started climbing stairs with weights in April. It was hard. I think the most I did was train for 1h 30m, a couple of times and the max frequency I achieved was twice a week.

I had stressed about the training so much that I started to get annoyed by it. It was long, monotonous and boring especially in humid NY summers. By may, I was somewhat burned out by my training program (still no program, it was all stairs once or twice a week with some weight training).

For me being stressed out is a good thing, that generally means I’m going to do something about it. Although, I’d say I was training like 20% of what plans such as Uphill Athlete suggest.

So the trip begins with some hiccups, my flight from New York City to Seattle, WA gets canceled and I had to scramble to find another one. (Note to self: never fly JetBlue) I get to Seattle on 8th August and use the extra day to prep.

Day 1 (August 9th)

I leave from Bellevue at 11 am in a rental car from Avis. The drive takes about 2 hours, and I arrive at IMG’s office at 2 pm. Today is mostly about checking gear and meeting the guides and the group. Gear check goes on until 5 pm, and I have to rent a lot of stuff. Rentals are expensive, mind you. I spend around $550 on them. But the good thing is that I don’t have to buy all that stuff, which could definitely cost thousands. After gear check, I get food from the bar and grill next to RMI. People say their pickles are amazing. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any. I’m staying in a tent on IMG’s premises, which is perfectly fine. There’s a bathroom, shower, and laundry unit in their office.

Don’t forget to meet Samson at Ashford General Store

The pack

Day 2 (August 10th)

We leave IMG at 8 am and arrive at Paradise at 9 am. It’s foggy and overcast, but the anticipation is electric. After a quick 5-minute break, the real adventure begins as we start hiking up the trail. One of the guides, Colton, has already taught us how to lift and wear our heavy packs—an essential skill, as they’re quite a burden!

It begins

The pace is brisk, but manageable with the group. I’d be out of breath in minutes if I were hiking alone, but here, I’m able to keep up without too much trouble. After about 2 hours, we take our first break to eat, drink, and change into our mountaineering boots. I’m excited to wear them, both because my hiking boots are subpar and because they’ll shift some of the weight from my back to my feet.

Did I mention how heavy my pack is?

Actually, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. My memory might be playing tricks on me, as I’m more vividly recalling how the pack felt at the end of the trip. Maybe it wasn’t so bad at this point. Regardless, this part of the hike is pretty enjoyable. I’m chatting with the guides and hiking at a consistent pace.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the guides teach us how to walk at a consistent pace so you can make it to the summit (and back!) without overexerting yourself. It’s a simple technique, but I am struggling with it.

We’re hiking to Camp Muir, and it’s taking around 6 and a half hours. We’re expected to reach Muir at 3:30 pm. This part is brutal, but I’m exceeding my expectations. I thought I wouldn’t make it to Camp Muir, but I’m still going strong. I even asked Angie, our guide, yesterday how many people give up before Muir. To my surprise, almost everyone makes it there. I’ve been to Camp Muir once before, so it would have been a waste to come all the way from NY and hike with 40 pounds just to see Muir, which I could see any day without destroying my back.

It’s 3:30 pm and we’re at the camp. I’m dying. We’re staying at the Gombu, named after the famous Nawang Gombu Sherpa. It’s one of those wooden huts. It’s a small room with wooden bunks or platforms. We’ll all be sleeping in there. I’ll be honest, I was a bit down when I first saw it, and then Angie casually mentions that there’s a mice issue at Muir. I have lots of other issues on my mind, mice not being one of them.

View from Camp Muir

After relaxing for a bit, the guides call us for dinner. It’s 4:30 pm, the perfect time for dinner. There’s a tent on the other side of Muir, and the only way to get there is treacherous. But I’ll forgive all that because the dinner is amazing. Gage and Justin, the guides, are making chicken burritos. Who doesn’t love burritos, especially at 10,000 feet? It’s just wonderful: the food, the company. Plus you can have seconds. I’m certainly loading up on burritos and hot chocolate.

Dinner isn’t just about amazing food. To my surprise, it’s also teaching me a lot about olive oil. One of the climbers has an olive oil business, and he’s not impressed with the Kirkland olive oil being used in the kitchen. I’m sure he’s grateful for the burritos, but as they say, once you’ve tasted the good stuff, you can’t go back. Here, I’m learning about the intricacies of olive oil, how to measure its quality (aka acidity?), and why I shouldn’t buy Italian oil (spoiler: it’s all because of the mafia). Well, thanks to Hollywood, we all know about the Italian mafia, don’t we? I have a headache, so I’m just listening. Actually, that would become the theme of the whole trip: I’m mostly listening because I don’t have the energy to talk. Anyway, thanks, Dio, for teaching me about olive oil. (I’m still waiting for the olive oil I was promised.)

Okay, so after dinner, everyone is just relaxing, and I’m going to bed because of the headache. I can’t tell if it’s from the altitude or the exertion. Either way, I’m exhausted and going to sleep early, while the others wait for the sunset. The sunset is beautiful, by the way. I missed it, but I saw the pictures.

Day 3 (August 11th)

I wake up pretty early and see the sunrise. It’s magical. Also, nobody sleeps at Camp Muir. It’s like New York City, always bustling with people, even at midnight. We go to the guides’ tent (aka the kitchen) at 8 am. The treacherous trek to the tent is even worse with the 40-pound pack.

Breakfast is delicious, we have pancakes, syrup, and bacon, and there’s always the packaged hot chocolate and soup. One hour of fun conversations about mice, food, and olive oil. Why olive oil again? Because we have an in-house expert. How often do you meet someone like that? Also, I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone saw a mouse in the Gombu. Maybe we smell so bad even the mice can’t handle it.

Okay, so the next part is training, which goes on from 9 am to 12 pm. We learn rope travel, and how to use crampons and an ice axe. Training is fun, and for the first time, it feels like the mountaineering adventure I signed up for has really begun.

After the training, we start for Ingraham Flats. It takes almost 2 hours to get there. We walk through snow and rocks. I don’t like rocks and the short rope is so short that if you pause for a second, you get pulled by the person in front. Ingraham Flats is incredibly beautiful. It’s like what you see in the movies: tents on snow, amazing views of the mountains.

Onwards!

We relax for a bit while the guides cook dinner. Food is served at 3:30 pm. It’s pasta with broccoli and sausage. It’s just unfathomable to get such a nice meal at that altitude. I have so much respect for the guides.

We’re told to go to sleep at 4 pm and that we have to wake up at 10:30 pm. We’ll eat breakfast and leave for the summit at 12 am. It’s quite bizarre to try to sleep at 4 in the afternoon and eat breakfast at 10 at night, but hey, that’s how you roll in the mountains. I have a hard time sleeping because it’s incredibly bright. The sun sets around 9 pm in August in Seattle. Pro-tip: bring an eye mask if you want to sleep. Oh, my tent neighbor Justin started snoring 30 minutes after dinner. I’m so envious. Somehow, I get a couple of hours of sleep.

Also, I should mention at this point that Camp Muir has bathrooms, and Ingraham Flats has a semi-private hole in the snow.

Day 4 (August 12th)

I wake up at 10:40 pm, and no one else is up. I guess everyone got some sleep. The guides bring us some hot water, and I eat ramen. At home, I boil the shit out of the ramen, but here I’ve learned that just adding hot water works just as well, especially if you’re on a mountain. With breakfast done, we start packing our stuff.

We start at midnight, and it’s a surreal experience. It’s really cold, and I can see a line of headlamps. There are teams ahead of us and behind us. We walk for about 2 hours and then take a break after Disappointment Cleaver. The pace is significantly faster now, we’ve been walking at a summit pace after Camp Muir.

Disappointment Cleaver (DC) is this massive section of rocks. It’s steep and brutal, but I’d say going up is easier than coming down. We take a 10-minute break. All breaks are quite efficient. We put our packs down as soon as we stop, sit on them, and eat, drink, and rest our legs. Mountaineering is efficient. The first 2 hours were exciting, somewhat tiring, but overall pretty good.

I’m thinking about how I haven’t trained at all for such a feat and how I’m somehow this far. I’m both excited and scared. The guides say that getting to the summit is only one-third. Also, at this point, the guides implore us to reflect on and decide whether to continue. We’re a group of 6, and everyone decides to march on. I forgot to mention that at the beginning, there were 8 climbers and 4 guides. Two climbers stayed back at Camp Muir, so now we are 6 climbers and 4 guides remaining.

We start from Disappointment Cleaver, and the next break is two hours away. This is the toughest part of the entire trip, a steep, icy climb with no stops. I’m roped up with a guide, Gage, and I’m dying. He’s walking like he’s in a park, and I just want a moment to breathe, but there’s no stopping. It’s here that I feel like I won’t make it, that I can’t fake my way anymore. My non-existent training hasn’t helped me tackle this part. Somehow, I keep going and just focus on taking one step after the other. This was a tidbit from another guide, Justin: “When you’re struggling, focus on finding a rhythm, one step after the other.” The idea is to take a step, rest for a microsecond, and take another. It’s called the rest step.

So after two hours of an incredibly hard push, we get a break. The steep climb took an hour and forty-five minutes. This is where I’m shivering from the cold. I have my parka on, but that’s not helping. I can’t feel my hands in the howling winds. It’s supposedly 30 to 35 miles at the summit, and we’re 700 feet away.

I can’t forget this break. I think it’s the most important break of the trip. This is when everyone is exhausted physically and mentally. I’ve been thinking all along that I’ve done so much better than my expectations. Do I really have to go to the summit? The whole point of this trip was to prove to myself that I can do hard things, and I kinda have. I’m debating if giving up is the right strategy here. Although, in all honesty, I’m not going to give up. I know that once I get out of the mental block, I can do anything I want.

The guides have been keeping tabs on everyone to see who can make it to the summit and who can’t. They ask again if anyone wants to turn back. Two climbers, Dio and John, decide to go back due to altitude sickness. I’m also on shaky ground mentally, but I ask Gage if I can do it, and he says, “I think you can.” That’s all I need to hear.

We start the final summit push at 4:00 AM. After an hour and thirty minutes of another steep climb, we reach the summit. It’s an unbelievable moment. I never thought I’d make it here, and it’s not just about the three hard days. I lived in Seattle for four years and saw Rainier every day. Rainier is a majestic mountain. I’ve been watching mountaineering movies and videos for years now. It’s always been a pipe dream, for many reasons. The effort and fitness needed are extraordinary, it’s expensive, and more than anything else, no Indians that I know of, do it. It seemed like the people who climb mountains are a different breed. People like me don’t do this stuff.

Okay, so I’m at the summit, and I have so many thoughts and feelings, but more than that, I’m cold. It’s so cold up there that taking a summit photo is as big a challenge as getting here. There’s a photo of me sitting on my pack at the summit, processing thoughts and emotions.

Four of us made it to the top, and three were family. These people are badasses. The kind of things they do for fun is just incredible. Coming back to the summit, it’s really cold, so we spend only ten minutes instead of the planned one hour. We also don’t go any further. As per the guides, there’s the summit crater and the rocky summit, which is at a higher elevation. I wouldn’t call the crater the summit as it’s not the highest point, but IMG does, and who am I to challenge the guides?

This write-up has become too long at this point. Let’s get to the descent quickly. We reach the summit at 5:30 AM and start the descent at 5:40 AM. It’s a grueling and painful journey that just won’t end. We reach Ingraham Flats around 9:00 AM, rest for a bit, gather our stuff, and stuff it in our packs. Next stop, Camp Muir at 10:00 AM. This is an actual break. We stop here for about an hour, and I don’t want to go any further down. I’m just thinking somehow I could stay here for a night and go down tomorrow.

We start from Camp Muir at 11:00 AM and get to the parking lot at 2:30 PM. It’s a long, excruciatingly painful, and incredibly fulfilling journey. I take my shoes off at Paradise and don’t wear them till I have to get in my car to drive to Seattle. Everything about this trip is memorable: the challenge, the pain, the self-doubt, the camaraderie, the accomplishment, the experience, and of course, the olive oil.