I realize all you might want to know is whether or not I made it to the summit of that mountain but I feel like I can't tell you the end of the story without first giving you the details of the journey. (now don't scroll down to the bottom of this post - you'll ruin it)
I headed to the mountain after work on Tuesday, pretty tired from a weekend of preparation and a long day at work tying up loose ends. The drive was great - I sang out loud and day dreamed about what was ahead...I had no idea.
I arrived at the Whittaker Bunkhouse around 8:30pm. The bunkhouse is really just a big community house with several rooms that have beds and bunk beds - I was lucky enough to find an empty room so didn't have to share. The house was full of climbers ready to make their summit attempts the next morning, sorting gear and giddy with anticipation of what was to come. I spent my evening eating Cheese Itz in bed reading my book and trying not freak myself out with anxiety. I knew I had to wake up early for climb school the next day so I tried to go to sleep early. Which would have been easier if the guy in the room next to me didn't have so much gas...I shut out the noise and conked out at about 10:30.
The next morning was fairly gloomy but fun. I sorted through my gear as I packed for the day and realized I would need gortex due to the pouring rains outside. I had a dull headache but put it out of my mind as I knew I had some things to learn before the summit attempt the following day. So I rented my pants, and then hopped on the bus with the rest of the climbers from the American Lung Association.
It took us about 40 minutes of driving through windy roads to get to the trail site from the Bunkhouse. I am prone to car sickness and so sat in the front of the bus, but I'm social so found myself turning around a lot to chat with the other climbers- this resulted in a pretty severe case of car sickness as I arrived to trek the hour to our climb school site. I'm sure that the fresh air and anticipation cured me though and I felt much better when we got to the trail.
Climb school took place on the snow in the very cold and very rainy foot of the mountain. I told my teammates I thought Rainier was just hiding from us because she knew we'd conquer her the following day...little did we know....
At school we learned what to do if we fell off the mountain feet first, head first and/or any other way we could think of. We were taught how to save ourselves and our teammates in case of dangerous fall, how to walk in our crampons, use the ice axe, and what to do on the ropes. It was a bit scary but a lot of fun - we pretended to be falling from the top of the glacier and practiced stopping our selves - just in case we MIGHT be in a situation whereby our bodies are traveling fast down a glacier three thousand feet towards it's demise. But most importantly we realized that our lives were literally in each others hands.
At the end of the day my headache was worse but I was so excited by the day and the possibilities of the next that I ignored it. Instead I wondered why I was involving myself in a sport whereby I might have to save myself from falling off a mountain thousands of feet above sea level.
After climb school it was time to check into my new room and prepare for an evening fireside chat with LOU WHITTAKER!! How cool!! My head became increasingly painful and I continued to pretend I was fine. Until about 15 minutes into Lou's talk when my head was splitting and I began to feel nauseous. To make a long story short - I was lucky because Jeremy came to visit me at about 7pm and ended up helping me deal with what proved to be a really bad bought of hypoglycemia or something - still not sure. I spent the better part of the evening barfing and shivering in my bed...and hoping and praying that I could just feel better so I could climb the next day. Well - this was my first experience as part of a life or death team...which was awesome! One of my teammates Hugh happened to be a paramedic, he gave Jeremy electrolyte pills and good advice - 90 minutes later I was a new woman and ready to tackle the mountain the next day...I couldn't believe it when I woke up feeling well normal again!!!
So...the climb...
We started out at about 8am - for Camp Muir. While the beginning of of the climb was quite uneventful, there were some cool moments... As we were walking up just past Pebble Creek we heard the loud whistles from the Marmots - then we saw one up on it's hind legs - looking like this:
Then two more popped up doing exactly the same thing when a coyote (who one of the climbers says was a fox - I still think it was coyote)...came trotting fairly close to us on the hunt for some marmot meat. It was full on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom...I was rooting for the marmots and I think they were successful in their escape.After that our journey to Muir was full of advice from our guide Brent who loved to tell us what to wear, how to manage our food and how to breath as we were ascending towards camp. Here we all are at rest stop bonding and sharing food:
We arrived at Camp Muir at about 3pm, found our bunks and prepared dinner. The bunkhouse at Camp Muir is very interesting it's a fairly tiny shack and we all slept in the same room side by side. I couldn't get a picture of it that day because the weather was so terrible. But here's a shot of the camp on a nicer day:
For dinner I shared some pretty awful dehydrated mac and cheese and Teriyaki chicken with Pamela (the event organizer for the climb for clean air and an awesome person all around). After that we got another good preparation talk from the guides and tried to sleep at about 6:30pm...which wasn't easy - the wind was howling all night long. I kept wondering if it's really THAT windy out there or does it just sound like that when you're 10,000 feet up on a mountain. Turns out it was the former.
We were awoken by our guides at about midnight and instructed to eat breakfast, pack our summit pack, get our crampons on our boots and head outside ready to climb the mountain. At this point I was pretty scared - how am I at about 100 pounds going to stay on a mountain with those howling winds ready to blow me right over?
"it sounds worse than it is" - the guides tried to reassure me..." we won't let you get blown off"
"uhhh...ok" I pretended to be reassured.
So I did what I was told - I put on my helmet, goggles and headlamp - (it was dark outside and very very windy), I strapped on my backpack and I clipped into the rope. So I was basically tied to two people behind me and the guide in front of me. Barbara was right behind me and she is the most positive person I've ever met in my life. Really a wonderful woman all around - when things felt tough I would yell behind me - "how ya doin' Barbara?" -- inevitably her response was I'm H-A-P-P-Y! - she spelled it out....it was pretty funny. Behind her was Jason an awesome guy with a great accent - the kind of guy who makes you feel confident that he's got your back. And our guide - Gabriel... was in front, leading the way. Gabriel is an excellent guide and all around interesting and kind person. I have a whole new appreciation for what he goes through - not only is he guiding inexperienced climbers up a 14 thousand foot mountain...he's encouraging us every step of the way, zipping up our coats if we couldn't do it because our hands were cold, shouting directions and so much more...those RMI guides are absolutely amazing!!
The first journey over the cowlitz glacier was easy. They teach you to pressure breath and rest step in climb school in order to save your energy. It was dark and quiet as we made our way across the glacier to Cathedral Rock. Here's a picture of the glacier and cathedral rock on a nice day - I was crossing it of course in the dark...but just so you get the idea of where I was headed:
Climbing over the rocks in our crampons with winds whipping at us was terrifying. I fell down a lot and was happy I couldn't see down to where I might land if I fell off the rocks entirely.From the rocks we entered what they call "the Gap" - ohhh how I longed for annoying colored coordinated workers with headphones on asking me if I needed to try something on....The Gap - or Cathedral Gap was a narrow trail with a steep slope. This was the hardest part - the wind was blowing gusts up to 50 miles an hour and I was literally being blown up and down the trail. I fell over and over again and often could not get up because of the wind pushing me down. At one point I looked up at Gabriel when I was down and yelled - Can I just crawl the rest of the way - but the wind was so loud he couldn't hear me. Every once in a while he would yell - Good job guys!! - I just thought -- WHAT? Good job? I'm getting the hell beat out of me. I can't even describe how scared I was, I just kept thinking, if I live through this it will be amazing and at some point I am going to be off this mountain. I could hear the climbers behind me fall too and also yell - "wait" or "ouch" - from time to time but mostly I could just hear the wind and see the ground as I was being pummeled.
After crossing through Cathedral Gap we got to Emmons Glacier which was much more manageable but my hands were very very cold and I was shaking with fear from the hour and half I had just experienced being thrown about on the side of the mountain. Physically I felt like I could go on but I was so frightened I decided that this was it for me.
I got to the rest stop on the glacier, put on my down jacket, sat on my pack and cried like a baby. Loud crying..sniffling...tears of disappointment and fear. I looked at my teammate Barbara who was on the rope behind me and I said "I'm sorry, I'm done." She said, "I don't blame you, you were being thrown around up there"
One of the guides came over and said "I've never seen it this bad" - and I asked if it was going to get worse. I said if it's going to get a little better, the winds I mean - I can go on, but if it's going to be like this the whole time I can't go on. He said - "it gets much worse, you did great"
At that point I cried some more and sat on my pack and shivered.
I wasn't tired physically which was the good news (THANK YOU DILLON - http://www.somatraining.com/) -- it was the fear that got me.
I thought I can't even go back now. It's too scary, I'm going to get blown around again - I can't do it.
But I did. John - the best guide EVER from Rainier Mountaineering Inc. - hooked me to his rope and put me right behind him. There were 4 of us on that team heading back and many more behind us. All in all a few made it to the next rest stop at Disappointment Clever and turned back, and 4 got to the high point - but no one summited that day. Our guides told us later that it was the most miserable climb they'd ever been on and one said it was the windiest he'd ever seen the mountain. So in the end I didn't regret my choice to turn back.
On the way back after crossing the gap and the rocks I had some time to think. I wondered whether or not I should have pushed forward, I enjoyed the silence as we crossed back over the Cowlitz glacier and I cried a little more about not being the tough girl I thought I was.
I was very very humbled by my experience on that mountain. There really is something strange about knowing your life is in the hands of someone else and some THING else for that matter. I saw myself being totally and completely reliant on my guides - they were the experts and I was in their world and I felt like a child in so many ways.
I learned a lot, I think I've changed quite a bit and I want to go back and do it again....perhaps on a sunny day.
Finally after we arrived back at Muir we rested and waited for the others to return. When others came back they cried too and we all seemed to understand why. It was damned scary and disappointing to not have made it to the top. But understandable - here's a video of Camp Muir when we were leaving to go home:
You get the idea about the scary conditions...
So I'm home now and safe and all I want to do for the rest of the weekend is to not regret - be thankful, hang out with Jeremy and give my dog Matilda lots of belly rubs.
