Mount Rainier: Emmons
Trip Date: June 15-16, 2019
Distance: 18.02 miles
Elevation Gain: 10,102 ft
Fees/Permits: America the Beautiful National Parks Pass, Climbing Recovery Cost Fee, Wilderness Permit
Jason and I climbed Mount Rainier via the Emmons over the weekend. We arrived at the White River Ranger Station around 9am, but with the waiting around on a busy weekend, we weren’t able to hit the trail until 10am.
We started off in our trail runners for the first portion of the approach up Glacier Basin Trail and stashed them just past Glacier Basin Camp where the snow became continuously skinnable (approximately 3 miles in). During our transition/snack break/water break here we had a brief bear sighting and some chats with a few people who recognized Jason.
We continued up the trail following it until we hit Interglacier and stopped at Camp Curtis for the evening. Thankfully, we arrived early enough to set up camp, make food and get tucked into bed by 6:30pm for a full night’s sleep before our early wake up call the next morning.
When my alarm chirped at 2:30am I was already up, having slept the best I’ve had in a long time in the alpine. After a quick breakfast and pack rearrangement, we ditched our overnight weight in the tent and started up for the second portion of the climb. Not two steps out of camp, I had a crampon malfunction. So after fidgeting with it for another half hour or so, we were finally able to get rolling at 3:30am.
Sunrise over Emmons Flats. Photo by Jason Hummel.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Photo by Jason Hummel.
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” I kept repeating to myself on the climb up. I had Jason “guide pace” me up the mountain so I would be less inclined to take breaks every 3 steps. The Emmons Glacier was in pretty good shape, save for a few obvious cracks beginning to widen so we opted for the less popular opinion (but still well within our comfort zones) of not roping up.
Around 12,000ft.
I was a bit nervous about hitting the 12k foot mark, since that’s where I turned around 2 weekends prior. But with a Mount Adams summit under my belt since then, and plenty of good food fueling me and generous quantities of water consumed to prevent dehydration, I felt pretty great by the time i hit 12,500ft.
I kept moving with trepidation towards 13,500ft. Sure enough, that’s when I started feeling the creeping sensation of temples beginning to throb. “Still much more manageable and not so bad,” I thought.
As we approached 14,000′ I began to feel a bit sluggish. Not quite to the point where I could fall asleep immediately like I had at 12k feet on my previous attempt, but a general tiredness. 400 ft to go and those 400 feet felt like they went on forever.
Summit of Mount Rainier. 14,411ft.
But at 1pm, we finally topped out at the summit of Mount Rainier!
To be honest, I was too tired to do anything more than a forced grimace for the summit photo. All my brain could think of was that I needed to descend and my legs were already cramping.
Survival Skiing. Photo by Jason Hummel.
After a very slow and icy ski (I’m not even sure you could even truly call my survival skiing, skiing) from the summit back to camp, we were hit with mushy snow the rest of the way down.