Ofa Reports: That Night on the Mountain

That Night on the Mountain

Wednesday, Aug 29, Day 3: The day started beautifully, the high that had been in place for the past few days was still there. The sky was blue, the air fresh and the view from 9525 ft was spectacular. Steve couldn’t believe that the old guys had actually slept 11 hours; the old guys couldn’t believe it was only 11 hours. The original plan had been to spend the day doing more rope training; belaying, etc, and resting for our assault on the summit Thursday. But plans do change……..

After the experiences of the day before, Grace and Katie decided that for this trip they had reached their summit. I can’t wait to read what they have to say about their climb to 9525 ft. Steve and Christina thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on our summit attempt by climbing up another couple thousand feet and setting up a high camp above The Corridor. The old guys agreed so we set the plan in motion. We were to take only what we needed for 2 days, leaving any excess gear at base camp with Grace and Katie. Katie and Grace made sure we each had a full complement of water, we checked all radios, applied yet another coating of sun block on all exposed skin including up our noses, geared up, roped up, and with ice axes and poles in hand set off. Our packs were considerable lighter, which buoyed our enthusiasm.

Much earlier that day, 5:00 AM, 2 other climbers set off for the summit, as did the Ranger, Sam, and his girl friend, Abby, at about 7:00 AM. Stepping off of Camp Schurman onto the Emmons Glacier was the easy part. Christina was in lead and was following the tracks from the earlier climbers. Within a hundred yards we encountered our first set of crevasses and negotiated them with little difficulty. It’s amazing how much we learned the day before and how our confidence had increased under the leadership of Steve and Christina. After climbing for a while we met up with Sam and Abby who were returning from 12000 ft; they ended their climb at that elevation because of the late start and the wind was starting to kick up. They showed us a better route and told us of a primo camping spot up a ways. We set off as they recommended, went about 50 feet and Christina suddenly broke through a snow bridge dropping up to her waist into a crevasse. A scary moment for all (see Grace’s account of Scary Moments). We can joke about it now but at the time it was quite a shock and made us all the more cautious. The wind picked up and we continued upward with visions of a flat area where we could set up camp. Then at about 11240 ft elevation Steve said this is the spot; the old guys looked around trying to find the flat primo campsite we had been promised; not to be found. Because of the grade we remained roped up and started digging ledges to create our own flat primo campsite. We worked for about 2, I’d say that Steve and Fred did the lions share of the digging. The initial ledge was about 20 ft long and 4 ft wide dug into a slope of maybe 30 degrees. Because the wind continued to gust with increasing force, we built walls on the uphill side to deflect the wind and protect the tents.

Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) was beginning to take its toll. Steve and Fred were experiencing severe headaches, Fred and Dad did not want to even think about food, Fred got sick again, and we were all exhausted. Steve placed some anchors into the snow so we could anchor our gear and ourselves to the side of the mountain for the night. Christina continued to melt snow to refill our water supply. We finally all crawled into our tents. All that is except Steve who prefers to sleep in a bivi-bag rather than a tent.

While this was going on we got a radio message from Grace and Katie that Dale had arrived at our base camp with 2 other climbers. Grace and Katie had been purifying water most of the day and refilled the new team. Steve asked Dale if he wanted to join us at high camp but he very colorfully declined. A word about Dale: he is a friend of Steve’s from West Point, presently in Special Forces having just returned from Iraq. Prior to Iraq, he had spent a few years stationed in Alaska with the Army Northern Warfare and has extensive mountaineering experience. The 2 climbers he was accompanying were on their 71st climb up Rainier in the past 30 consecutive years. They had done the climb from White River Camp (4320 ft) to Camp Schurman (9525 ft) in about half the time it took us.

We heard a plane flying overhead and got a radio message from Grace and Katie that it was Mark. We were all too tired to crawl out of our tents to look (sorry Mark). He took a lot of pictures that are available through this blog and we hope you enjoy them. Mark later told us about his unique experience; on one side of the mountain he caught an updraft that increased his elevation at about 1000 ft per minute and on the other side pushed him down at about 700 ft per minute. He was also able to fly over the mountain; you do the math on that one, quite a feat for a small plane.

The wind increased, tents were blowing as we hunkered down for the night at about 6:00 PM. Our plan was to get a good night sleep, arise at 2:00 AM to be ready to hook up with Dale at about 3:00 AM and head for the summit. Good plan. Well, there was no good night sleep. The wind hollowed all night collapsing our tents so they looked more like nylon wraps rather than tents. Amazingly, when the wind let up the tents would spring back into their normal shape. Later Steve told me that he had already developed his rescue plan should Fred and Dad’s tent rip apart. We didn’t think we got any sleep but apparently our snoring belied that. As I lie there all night waiting for the tent to rip apart, I thought that this was just a nighttime blow that would soon end; wrong again. At one point Christina called to Steve that she had the shakes; she was warm enough but couldn’t stop shaking. Steve hollered back to hang in there because there was nothing we could do until the AM. In a short time she calmed down and realized she probably had too much sugar. Throughout his Army career Steve has spent a lot of bad nights in the wilderness but he counts this as among of the worst.

At about 2:00 AM we got a call from Grace and Katie that Dale and the other 2 climbers were heading up; we thought they were crazy. What we didn’t realize was that the 2 climbers wouldn’t be denied the summit on this or any day. They arrived, we chatted a bit and they continued up. It took us another hour to get ready: pack all our gear, anchor it to the mountain side, rope up, refill our water, try to eat and get underway. Later we learned that Grace, Katie and Abby were watching our headlamps and thought we were crazy when they saw us heading up rather than down.

The next 2 hours were perhaps the most taxing we have ever experienced. We frequently had to dig our ice axes into the snow to keep from being blown off the mountain. After two hours and only an 800 ft elevation gain, an absolutely glorious sunrise, more AMS compounded by a lack of sleep, and an unceasing wind we decided that for this trip and on this day we had reached our summit at 12000 ft. Steve looked to the northwest and saw some ominous clouds cresting the mountain and heading down towards us. As we started our decent, the wind threw ice pellets at us. We know we had made the right decision. We learned later that the wind gusts at Camp Schurman (9525 ft) had been measured at 70 mph and was projected as being stronger at higher elevations. The saying goes that the lower you get the better you feel; we were all too tired to notice if we felt better.