Survival... sort of. « Thread Started on Jul 14, 2005, 5:54pm »
Hello. I thought I would post this story from our latest trip to Mount Rainier in Washington State. I'm going to try to make this quick so excuse the bad flow...
James, Randy and I were going to climb mount rainier via the Tahoma glacier route this year. Our 2nd and 3rd trip to the mountain. This route is less visited and longer than most. It is on the west side and sees little traffic. The first day called for a start at 2900ft and hike up to 6000ft. Then hop on the glacier at 6500 and camp around 7000. When we got there it was cloudy. Hard to see the route and thus hard to get on the darn thing. We tried but white out conditions forced us to retreat for a different approach. We hiked down to 4000 to sleep. The next day brought us up the other side of the glacier at 6500ft. Our idea was to follow a cleaver up to about 9000ft and then get on either of 2 glaciers. Again white outs left us with visibility of 80ft -200ft. Not nearly enough to see anything. The compass and altimeter were our friends but that was it. We made it a little further until it really started to rain. We were soaked and it was still hard to see. We camped out and stayed in the tent for about 14hrs. Hard hard rain for hours and hours! Woke up ready to go and still couldn't see the glacier. We stayed on the cleaver(stretch of rock that is above the glacier on the side) until about 8300ft. This is where James stepped out onto a snow field and with one step triggered a pretty big avalanche. All of the rain left for a slushy mess as the top layer. We retreated at this point, knowing the conditions wouldn't allow for safe progress.
The next morning we had clearing skies and it allowed for us to see across the glacier~! We traversed it in short time and planned on camping on a beautiful outcrop at 7300ft. We made it quickly and enjoyed an afternoon in the sun. Cooked rested ate and most importantly took our first clear glimpse of the glacier and our route. The only thing is that we had run out of time. Randy had to catch his plane in the next 30 hours. Well we thought we ran out of time! Our plan came up to starting at 1am and climbing up and over the mountain, down another route we had all done before, hitch a ride back to the truck and drive Randy to the airport. Then James and I would return for the gear at 7300ft and leave back to Seattle.
1am; we wake up and get going. I start the route in the dark, watching my compass bearings and looking out for cravasses. We make it to our destination in about 3.5 hours, where James was to take over and climb "the stuff" or the great part of the route. He lead us through some of the most beautiful section of the climb. large cravasses with a picturesque view! He starts up the 3500ft headwall and we are making good time. Then 2 hours in, he bonks. He is wiped out. This is where we should have turned back. Instead, we continued. This is where it gets interesting.
The climb called for 5-7 hours from 11000ft to the summit at 14411ft at 20-40 degree slopes. Only we found slopes of 40-60 degrees. The Tahoma Direct route was about ready to beat us up.
I took the lead from here on and had to place protection all of the way. A tiring and strenuous thing to do at 13000ft. It also takes alot of time to hammer in 36 inch pieces of aluminum into ice. I was doing OK but knew that the other guys were getting tired and dehydrated. I would stop once in a while for everyone to eat and drink but knew it was getting late. The sun was drying us out and giving us sunburn.
We packed little so we could move fast and now we were running low on supplies, still had a lot of distance to cover. I finally make it to a slope that eased and to my horror found a layer of 2 inch crust with about 10 inches of powder below. I would take a step and break through. Basically for every step I would take, I would slide down 2. A tiring thing to do even when you are fresh and at sea level. Here we are at 13,500 ft and on hour 14. We staggered like drunken sailors in the mess. We were the only ones that were in that area or had done the route in some time. Once we got a bit higher, Randy made a call to 911 because we were exhausted, had bearly any food or water left and were not going to make it down. We started to chisel an ice cave out with our ice axes and shoveled the snow and ice out with our helmets. It was about 10 degrees and a constant 50mph wind was sucking our warmth away. Once we had the cave dug pretty big, we got word that a helicopter was going to drop us 100lbs of supplies. We were greatful but had to ascend another 300ft to get them. Randy started to shiver and I looked at the cave as if it might be my grave. I thought about my wife and family and how I would have let them down.
By now I was preparing myself on how I could use my jackets and backpack and anything else to stay warm for the night. It was then that the helicopter came with a cargo net of gear. We hurried up as fast as we could and set up the tent on the west crater of the summit of mount rainier. Not the fashion we wanted to do it in. It was hard to set up the tent and had no cover from the wind and conditions. Eventually we were in the sleeping bags and I fell asleep. At about midnight we hear people shouting HELLO! HELLO!. It was 2 rescue rangers that made it up the mountain in about 5 hours via the Emmons glacier. (normally takes people 7 hours to do, during the daylight!) They traveled fast and light and relied on the dropped equipment. They were near hypothermic when they arrived.
At about 5:15am, they came to us and asked if we could head out on our own. I felt much better with the rest and knew I could make it on my own. They cooked us some food and melted some snow for water. Then we were on stand-bye. Another team had started up our route and one guy had a heart attack in the middle of it. The rangers might have to help with an evacuation. We waited some time and then started down. It was a 5 hour trip down to camp Sherman on to 9600ft. We sorted the gear out and ate some more hot meals that they prepared for us. Then we headed down the glacier to where the rangers were to drive us.
We had to interview with the head park rangers and give a complete 2hr long interview. We drove Randy back to the airport, where he missed his flight and we slept for a few hours in a hotel. We still had to go back to get our gear at 7300 ft!!!
We headed out and came to 6000ft in a few hours to see that the white out conditions were back! It sucked. We were tired, had to get our several thousand dollars worth of gear off the mountain, come back down with some gear with two people instead of three and now we couldn't see the route again. We were stuck! After trying several different ways, James took the bull by the horns and headed up. We made progress slowly and in 2 hours were on the glacier. We made it to our camp in 7 hours and stayed the night. It was great to be back there because it would be smooth sailing! The next morning we started early and donned the heavy packs down the glacier and to 2900 ft and the truck. We headed back into town and were able to get an early flight back to our families.
We are all ok. It was a brush with life and we learned a tremendous amount. James doesn't think he will head back up the mountains again, Randy is happy to be back home and I have finished pealing on my badly sunburned face. All my warm wishes, Lou-
Dude, you're a maniac. I love your passion for adventure. You fearlessly pit your smarts, abilities and endurance against the geographic obstacles and unpredictable and awesome forces of nature.
I feel the need to mention that yesterday, while I at the office, I suffered a paper cut. However, rather than going home early, I toughed it out until 5pm.
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