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Horizon Air "Climb To The Sky" [05/1993]

I dug my boot into Mount Rainier's expansive whiteness. Below, Emmons Glacier cascaded and curled 8,000 feet to its snout in the fertile valley. A shout and a slight tug on the rope meant water break. I stopped. At this altitude trees looked like smears of charcoal. In the Sunrise visitors' center children probably squinted at me through the telescope. "Those people look like ants, " I imagined them reporting. "Why are they up there?" I didn't have an answer yet. The top of Washington was only 1,000 feet above.

In early April my friend and climbing companion Eric had called from Chicago. "When are we going to climb that big snow pile in your back yard?" he said. "Mount Rainier?" "Yeah, that humongous baked Alaska, " he said. "How about the Fourth of July?"

With that our plans were set. During the next three months we talked often, planned meals and routes, and rattled off checklists of climbing equipment-prussics, caribiners, harnesses, snow flukes, belay devices. We added mountain enthusiasts Michael and my wife, Maren, to the summit team. I became enthralled with Rainier, and read everything I could find. Three months later at 13,000 feet, Eric stopped and gazed upward at the crater rim. "This is quite a drift," he said.

Climbing Mount Rainier was one of the most challenging things I have ever done; it was also one of the most rewarding. The mountain is one of the most extreme places in the Northwest - rising nearly 3 miles above Puget Sound, it creates its own weather - yet on its frozen upper slopes, I found a tranquility unknown even in the hush of the forested lowlands. On Rainier's glaciers, climbers shiver at midnight and sweat at noon. They sleep in the close confines of bivouacs, then ascend to some of the most stirring vistas in the world-panoramas of the Cascade Range and Washington's eastern and western lowlands.

The mountain, by nature, evokes the contradictory. It was born of fire, but now lies mostly dormant beneath a massive glacial cap - the largest in the contiguous United States. At 14,411 feet, Rainier is the monarch of the Cascade Range. It's the highest volcano in the lower 48 states, and its 27 glaciers cover 35 square miles. Six glaciers, the Emmons, Ingraham, Kautz, Nisqually, Winthrop and Tahoma, flow from the summit ice cap.

Such alpine features herald Rainier as one of the most coveted mountaineering destinations in North America. Notable mountaineers such as Lou and Jim Whittaker, Willi Unsoeld and Fred Becky spent their early climbing days on its slopes. Today, about 2,500 climbers of all ages reach the summit each year, most climbing mid-June through August with Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. (206-627-6242). In 1973, Dean Bentley, 15, became one of the youngest first ascenders. In 1978, 80-year-old Julius Boehm became one of the oldest success stories. Speed demons such as Rainier guide Craig Van Hoy have reduced the usual two-day roundtrip climb from Paradise to the summit to five hours, 25 minutes. Most notable in the annals of mountaineering history, however, Rainier served as a training ground for Sir Edmund Hillary's first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 and Jim Whittaker's 1963 first American ascent. I would be among the ranks of masters.

For our first ascent we chose the standard route from paradise - a two-day haul with a 10,000-foot base camp at Camp Muir and a summit attempt on the second day via the ominous but well-traveled Disappointment Cleaver. When we hit the trailhead with towering packs stuffed with four days of food and clothing for arctic weather, we ascended through alpine meadows ablaze with wildflowers. But trees soon became stubby, and intermittent gusts swept from the glacial faces dropped temperatures by 10 degrees.

As I ascended through the tree line at panorama Point, a popular day-hike destination, I thought of those who had gone before us. In July 1857, Lieutenant August V. Kautz managed to ascend just above 14,000 feet on the present-day Kautz Glacier, reaching a high point near the summit plateau, but not attaining his goal because of high winds, poor snow conditions and impending darkness. In preparation for his climb Kautz noted, "We sewed upon our shoes an extra sole, through which were driven four-penny nails with the points broken off and the heads inside. We took with us a rope about 50 feet long, a hatchet, a thermometer, plenty of hard biscuits and dried beef."

The four of us were clad head-to-toe in Gore Tex, Ultrex, Supplex, polypropelyne, Capilene, varying grades of nylon, high-tech plastics, sun block, glacier glasses and state-of-the-art crampons. For energy we would eat freeze-dried chicken tetrazzini, sweet-and-sour shrimp, stroganoff, dried cranberries, chocolate chips and handfuls of Powerbars.

On August 17, 1870, with considerably less, Philemon Van Trump and hazard Stevens reached the summit and claimed the first ascent. In 1890, climbing in a full-length skirt, Fay Fuller became the first woman to top Rainier.

Pebble Creek, just above panorama point, marks the beginning of the Muir snowfield, an undulating swath of permanent snow, where climbers first encounter false summits and thing air. It is also here that hiking ends and climbing begins. The terrain is noticeably different - the trees are gone, leaving just snow, ice and igneous rock. Weary climbers on their descent pass us. "From the top we could see Canada," they shout.

To the south, views of Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Hood, and on a clear day, Mount Jefferson, unfolded. After five hours of climbing we reached the rude huts of Camp Muir, named for John Muir, who, recognized the presence of light pumice on the ground as an indication of shelter from the wind, selected the site during his 1888 ascent of the mountain. At camp we erected the tents, dug a snow kitchen, and began to melt snow - a nonstop activity = to replenish our water supply.

Base camp was lively as the 30 or so climbers swapped stories, recounted past climbs and studied ascent routes. "The glacier is pretty well closed up this year," said one climber about crevasses. "Next time I'll bring my snowboard," said another. They talked of dream climbs, of soloing K-2 or McKinley. Languages from Europe, Asia and South America were heard among the ranks of doctors, custodians, homemakers, professors, business professionals and mechanics. But such distinctions were irrelevant. Above 10,000 feet technique, wisdom and teamwork write the success stories. We were now officially "at altitude." From time to time, climbers would look up in awe, surveying the gradient, the rocks, the ice, the weather. They seemed to contemplate the summit of this great mountain, still distant, aloof, secretive. At midnight we awoke to stars and fired our stoves to melt snow. The atmosphere was calm. It was a go. In blackness, the camp came alive with murmurs and the frigid chink of metal. From Camp Muir, we became a four-person team, "tied in" at 41-foot intervals by a 9-mm rope, which would serve as a lifeline in an emergency. Crevasses, stress fractures in the ice, are the most common glacial hazards for climbers. The people tied to your rope quickly become the most important people in your life. Petty worries and personal rivalries brought from the lowlands are discarded or the team goes no farther.

With headlamps flickering, we began the ascent through the alpine blackness, looking like a string of torch bearers from an ancient tribe. I could only hear the crunch of snow and the rush of air through my windpipe. I led our team over the ice, studying with sweeps of my light the subtle undulations of the glacial surface. I was conservative in my judgments, always balancing safety and speed as we made our way through Cathedral Gap and across the Ingraham Glacier to the foot of Disappointment Cleaver - a prominent igneous monolith. Obsessed as we were with altitude, lateral steps lost purpose. The only successful move was up. In comparison, the ascent to Camp Muir is like an adventurous day hike; the upper mountain gives the feeling of leaving the planet. Altitude usually takes its toll at the top of Disappointment Cleaver, 12,000 feet. Some people turned back, despite the clear weather. Although we were winded, we felt strong and stopped for water and a Powerbar. My thighs burned and vapor condensed inside my glasses. Within minutes I went from sweating to shivering. Ice crystals streaked my water bottle. The eastern sky was glowing. At 5:15 A.M., when we were at 13,500 feet, the sun's red disk broke the horizon.

The route zigzagged across the whiteness toward the top. My steps were methodical and measured, my breathing regular. I was working hard, but efficiently. I felt the rope go taut at my waist. The others wanted a break. I stopped. Then we continued. Step. Step. Breath. Step. Pause. Step. Step. Breath. Approaching the crater rim, the slope eased. The wind that had kicked up at 11,000 feet now howled at about 50 mph. The morning sky was still clear. Rime ice covered exposed rock and half my face. I stepped down. The crater that had once boiled lava revealed itself - an expansive dish of compact snow - and across it, Columbia Crest, the summit. As a reminder of Rainier's fiery past, the crater has firn caves that are kept open by warm gases emitted from volcanic fumaroles. These "steam caves" warmed Stevens and Van Trump in 1870 when they bivouacked on their first ascent. There's even an underground lake, Lake Grotto, 150 feet beneath the older western crater. From here, the summit itself appears as little more than a pile of snow. Eric assured me this was the snow pile he spoke of. As I ascended the final few feet, I knew exactly where I stood on the globe. This spot is visible from Seattle. I waved my arms. For Washington, this is where the earth stops and the sky begins. Below was a blanket of cloud, and above, the deep blue expanse of space.

An important and somewhat unexpected realization on every summit is that the climb is only half complete. After three months of planning and training, and 11 hours of climbing, I spent just 15 minutes on top. My mind was in ecstasy, but my legs were trembling. My lungs heaved and my heart pounded, trying as a team to gather and circulate as many scarce oxygen molecules as possible. The sweat from the ascent was beginning to freeze inside my coat. It was time to go down.

The descent, however, was magnificent. In daylight now, the majesty of our path was revealed. Great blue glaciers cascaded down the upper slopes, their translucent turquoise fissures fading to darkness. In some areas the ice was broken into cubes the size of bungalows. In other places it had cracked into barrack-like rectangles or Gothic mansions, all built on a foundation of snow that fell a half-million years ago.

Ultimately, I asked myself the perpetual question: Why do I climb? My answer: Because it builds perspective. Few advances of modern age, except radios, high-tech climbing gear and a solar toilet at Camp Muir, have penetrated this extreme wilderness. Longings for domestic amenities such as tap water and mattresses are obliterated by contemplations of scale-the-gargantuan mountain, its glaciers and the comparatively insignificant span of my steps.

By dusk, we were speeding in a car toward Seattle at a mile a minute. What we had done would imprint our memories, somehow affect future decisions. "We usually don't get drifts like that in Chicago," Eric said, breaking the silence. Humans have evolved while the great ice sheets have waxed and waned through time. On Rainier I came to terms with the ice. Carpe diem.

By Byron Ricks

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