Mt. Rainier Attempt, 4-5 Jul 08

A glacier from the top of the Dissapointment Cleaver, 12,500'

Little Tahoma Peak from the top of the Dissapointment Cleaver, 12,500'

A rest stop at Ingraham Flats after descending

The view from Camp Muir on Independence Day. Mt Adams in the background above the clouds.

Me at Camp Muir. It was cold.

The bootpath across the Cowlitz Glacier and onto Cathedral Rocks

I've written about Camp Muir several times already, so I won't write much about it here. paradise was pretty cloudy when we left, but we got above the clouds just past Panorama point at about 7000' and it was awesome.

As soon as we got to Muir we went to the Public shelter and met another team of 3 people. Two of them were soldiers from Ft. Lewis, and all 3 had been to the same climbing class I had been to at Pierce College. We talked to them for a while and I decided to spend the night at the shelter so that we could go at the same time as the other teams we'd met.

Left Camp Muir at 0130 in a cloudless sky with a slight breeze. By the time we reached Ingaham the breeze had become stronger, and about the time we got on the cleaver a cloud rolled in from the other side of the mountain and the visibility started steadily going down while the winds went up. Several parties turned around at the top of the cleaver, but we kept going.

At about 0630 and roughly 14,000 feet the winds were stronger and blowing right at us, and we were covered in rime ice from head to toe and turned around within sight of the crater rim. I was afraid if visibility went down any more we wouldn’t be able to find the wands. Conditions got better on the way down, but were never good. It rained and hailed on us between Muir and Paradise.

One of the pickets for the fixed lines below the cleaver was removed by another party. There were pickets for lines above the cleaver, but no lines attached to them. The route was pretty straightforward. There were some crevasses along the route, but none presented any major obstacles. The route was well wanded and easy to find.

I got back home from the mountain just in time. A few hours later my stomach started to hurt, and