We were up at 5:50am this morning. Adam slept in Jeff's VW Vanagon and Andy slept in my VW Vanagon, circled like covered wagons out by the garage. Well, it is hard to imagine a circle created by two VW Vanagon-more like an L. We already had our packs in my van. I grabbed bagels and cheese from the fridge in the house and we were on our way by 6:20am. We stopped for gas in Toledo, then headed for the coffee stand in Morton. With coffees in Andy and Adam's hands, we drove to Elbe and then into the park entrance. Only one booth was open, with three cars lined up. Each car in front had an annual pass, so the line moved super quick. I flashed my annual pass, and we were headed up to Paradise.
At the parking lot we found a stall and made a quick trip to the bathroom, then the wilderness office to ask about the route. They told us that both private and guided parties had made the summit in the past few days, so the route must be good. We returned to the van, donned our walking shoes and packs and headed up the trail. We took a clothing break along the side of Alta Vista, then continued to the base of Pan Point where we took a water break. From there it was non stop to Pebble Creek.
I chose to put on my climbing boots, my 18 year old Koflach immediately after crossing the creek. Andy and Adam decided to climb up to Wild Woman Rock to change into theirs. They went ahead while I sat to don my red boots. Boots on, I climbed up the snow, meeting Adam below Wild Woman Rock where he was changing shoes. Andy changed as well and we all hid our shoes in the rocks.
We continued upward. The amount of snow that had melted in the three weeks since I was last here was amazing. About 500 vertical feet above where we dropped our shoes we crossed a band of rock and stopped to take a breather. I looked down at the Koflachs and noticed the plastic was splitting along the sides, a long line just below the rings that hold the shoe laces. My guess is the plastic was old and weak and when I tugged on the laces to tighten the boots around my feet the plastic gave way and tore the length of the boots. Yikes! The inner boots were now exposed to the elements and it was likely that the top half of the boots would completely separate from the lower half, leaving me without footwear. We discussed the problem for a few minutes. I did not want to cancel the climb because of my stupid boots, but how could I climb Rainier with boots I could not trust. We came to the conclusion that I could wrap sleeping bag straps (Adam had 4 that he used to hold his boots to the outside of his pack, now not in use) around my boots to hold the lower half to the upper half. Then, if I always wore my crampons, their straps would also hold the lower half of my boots to the upper half. As a backup, Andy suggested I retrieve my other Salomon hiking shoes we had hidden at Wild Woman Rock. He volunteered to slide down on his plastic sheet he had brought for that purpose and get them. He took my ski poles to facilitate the uphill return trip. It took him almost exactly an hour. Adam and I watched his progress, had a bite to eat, filled and purified a quart of water and applied the sleeping bag straps and crampons to my boots. Andy took a 15 minute break upon his return, then we continued up the Muir Snow Field, Anvil Rock our destination. It was about 1:30pm when we got back underway.
As we approached Anvil Rock I heard rushing and pouring water, but could not see the source of the sound. In the next 20-30 feet I came upon a crevasse about a foot wide. At the bottom of it, out of sight, was the sound of rushing water-lots of it. Also noticeable was copious quantities of water pouring down the sides of the crevasse. We dropped our packs and filled all our water bottles, relishing the thought of all the water we would not have to melt once in camp.
We continued up toward Anvil Rock. I was surprised to see that the rock of the ridge was sticking out of the snowfield 20 vertical feet. In the past, I had been here and there was no rock exposed. Other times, the ridge might be 6 feet high, but never 20'. I hiked to the upper end and looked over. There was no place to camp on the other side. We decided to camp on the Muir Snowfield, right up against the rock ridge. We set up the tent and I laid down in the tent for a brief rest. Adam went to explore the ridge. Andy began melting water for dinner. Adam put a blue bag to use. We ate our respective dinners, then went up to the old lookout site and found rusty nails and other debris from the burned lookout. Adam climbed down on the Cowlitz Glacier side of the ridge and found old tin cans, a piece of the lookout and an ancient ketchup bottle.
We returned back to our tent, crawled in and put on "Hamilton" on my phone. We put it in the net at the top of the tent and each lay on our back watching the performance. I had seen it many times before, Andy had been to the live play in Seattle and Adam had not seen it at all. Adam was very impressed. We watched only the first hour and 40 minutes, then shut it off so we could get some sleep. It was about 110:30pm
I had a very uncomfortable night. My Exped pad is not good on snow and I could feel the cold coming up from the bottom chilling me. By Rainier standards, it was a warm night, so I had gone to bed in shorts, a shirt and no hat. I was sleeping in my lightweight quilt. I got very little sleep. Sometime during the night Andy offered to switch sleeping pads with me. His was a little better, but I still felt the cold from below. About 2 or 3 I put on a fleece, a hat and a neck dicky. That helped a little, but I doubt I got more than 3 hours sleep. Was it my down quilt that allowed the cold from below to make me cold or are the inflatable sleeping pads just that poor at insulating?
