July 9, 2012: with a case of the Irish flu we packed up the car and left the wedding to drive out to Washington. We drove through beautiful gorges and stopped with the kids to swim in a river. The temps were as high as 107 degrees as we got out of the mountains in Western Idaho and into Oregon. We drove about halfway and stopped in a motel in Pendleton, OR for the night. The next morning we finished the drive to Ashford, WA which is the base town for climbing Mt. Rainier. The drive was spectacular. We saw all the vineyards and fruit orchards as well as beautiful rivers, gorges and mountains. Our first glimpse of Rainier made us very nervous as it rises above the landscape like nothing I've ever seen. James said, "that could be Everest for all I know". That's how huge it looked. We got to the cabin that Donna & Lou rented and settled in a bit before our orientation meeting with Melissa that afternoon. She covered what the plan was and what gear we needed. I got no sleep on Monday night due to being anxious about the climb. Tuesday morning James, Lou and I headed to RMI's base camp in town to pick out all of our rental gear. We felt like fish out of water with all the new equipment and gear but eventually got it all figured out. In those moments you feel totally unprepared to make decisions even on which socks to buy because you dont know anything. Tuesday was all about snow school. After we got our gear we headed into the National Park and up to the Paradise parking lot. We hiked for about 30 minutes to a spot where Melissa showed us all the techniques and safety procedures we need to know. We practiced different techniques to walk up hill, downhill, rest stepping, pressure breathing. We learned to use our ice axes to self arrest in case we or one of our team members falls. We also roped up to each other and practiced walking as a unit which is very important for the safety of the team. The amount of slack between you and a team member can mean the difference between being easy to save in case of a fall or not. All the while the mountain loomed but once we were up there and in our gear and doing the work my anxiety was gone. As I type this it is 5 am on wednesday and I can't sleep because we are about to leave to begin the true climb in a few hours. clearly I still have some butterflies but nothing like yesterday. We got home from snow school at 4pm and played with the kids. We took them back to
RMI's base camp in town for dinner and to pick up our meal plans for the climb. Afterwards we packed all of our gear and got ready. Melissa came over to help with packing and we all turned in early. I slept from about 10pm to 4:30 am. Now I am just hydrating and resting before we leave. The plan is to start climbing around 9:30 am. It should take about 5 hours to reach Camp Muir where we will sleep. Melissa will have tents all set up for us and we just need to eat, drink and rest as much as we can. We'll try to catch a few hours of rest. Then we wake around 11pm and start climbing in the dark. We will climb for 6 to 9 hours to the summit, snap a picture and head back to Camp Muir. We'll pack up and rest a bit then hike back to the car. James, Jon and I are on that schedule. Lou is going to spend an extra night at Muir and make his summit attempt the next night. Wish us luck!
