Mt. Rainier

Hello and welcome!  The 2013 Pan-Mass Challenge is mere days away, and I have arrived back in Massachusetts to readjust to the time zone (and the heat) and go for a couple of last rides before the big day.  My hometown of Boxborough is great for cycling, with rolling country roads winding through farmland that hasn't changed much since before the American Revolutionary War started not far from here.  Not a bad place to keep the legs limber until the ride.  The donations continue to roll in, I am at about $2,000, or almost halfway to my $4,500 goal by the October deadline.  Thanks to everyone for your generosity, and if you haven't had a chance please go to my PMC profile and donate if you can.  PMC riders pay additional registration fees to cover the cost of infrastructure and organization for the event, so every single penny of your donations goes to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  I've got an exciting story for you this time!  My first summer of graduate school research did not leave me with a whole lot of time for major mountaineering objectives, and I have had to content myself with the smaller ranges around Vancouver.  I wanted to get up onto at least one high summit before the ride, so with a few days to spare before leaving for the east coast I committed myself to driving down into Washington state and taking a shot at the most serious mountaineering objective in the lower 48. 

Jamie and I nearing the Muir snowfield at about 7,000' on Mt. Rainier.  

At 14,400' Mt. Rainier is the highest Cascade volcano.  It is one of the furthest north, the most glaciated and far more technically challenging than any of the others.  It is definitely the jewel in the collection of any Cascade volcano peakbagger and one that I had been dreaming about since starting to climb in this range.  My old friend Jamie had flown out from Boston, so we made a plan to climb the mountain we had been talking about since our first hikes together on New Hampshire's Mt. Washington.  

Setting up at Camp Muir, 10,000'.  

I drove the 5 hours south from Vancouver to Mt. Rainier National Park, found a campsite and waited for Jamie to arrive from the Oregon desert where he had been climbing at Smith Rock State Park.  The next morning we organized our gear and drove up to the Paradise ranger station to register our climb and get our permits. These permits are required for anyone planning to travel above 10,000 feet on the mountain, and are used to be sure climbers return by their expected date.  Those who do not are assumed lost or worse and will have search and rescue initiated to find them.  Needless to say, one takes care while filling out this kind of paperwork.  After we had crossed all the t's etc. we chugged some last minute water, shouldered our packs and headed up the skyline hiking trail towards the Muir snowfield.  

Camp Muir on the Cowlitz Glacier.  

The Muir snowfield is the first tough part of any climb of Rainier up this side of the mountain. It is five miles of relentless, featureless uphill slog in blazing hot sun.  The snowfield climbs from 5,000 to 10,000 feet so altitude is not a huge issue, but the sun is killer and our packs were loaded down with tents, sleeping bags, several days worth of food and fuel, climbing gear and ropes.  It was a seemingly endless afternoon, I spent half of it relishing the PMC training I was getting, and the other half cursing Jamie for dragging ass all morning leaving us to climb the snowfield in the heat of the afternoon.  All in all I felt pretty great, I'm a bit of a Cascade veteran at this point and have learned the painful importance of sunscreen, and also of chugging water like a crazy person in the days and hours before a climb like this.  These things, plus a spring's worth of PMC training led to a surprisingly easy climb. Let me qualify that statement by saying that by 'easy' I mean I didn't think I was going to die before completing the next ten steps.  It was not easy, but it was the least painful high altitude approach day I can remember.  We breezed by other climbers, huffing and puffing and trying to keep it together.  I had never before felt the positive impact of training quite like it, I began to feel pretty OK about this whole godforsaken PMC idea.  By the time the sun had hit its high point and began its journey back down we were nearing our camp, and the mountain ranges and volcanoes to our south were laid out before us.  

Guide's huts at Camp Muir near sundown.  

At around 6 pm we arrived at 10,000 feet at Camp Muir.  The camp is named after John Muir, an author and naturalist who fought for preservation of the western forests and petitioned congress to create the National Park bill which was passed in 1890.  Camp Muir would be our home for the night, and by night I mean the next 5 hours.  We had a lot to do once in camp, set up the tent, eat as much as we could, pack for the night's climb and melt a lot of snow for drinking water.  As we hurried through all of our tasks it began to dawn on me that all the other climbers at camp were quite relaxed and sitting around chatting and playing cards.  As it turns out most folks climb Rainier in 3 days, with an extra day to relax and acclimatize to the thinner air.  Physical activity is extremely hard on big mountains like Rainier, at the summit the air contains a little more than half the amount of oxygen available at sea level.  Climbers near 30,000 feet in the high Himalaya in India are dealing with only 30%.  Most at that this altitude use bottled oxygen, but some don't, and that's insane.  Given enough time the body will adjust, creating more red blood cells to carry more oxygen, but with all our heel dragging back at the bottom we had only a few hours to prepare everything and get a good nights sleep before the toughest climb I would yet have done.

The view from Camp Muir.  The Tatoosh Range foreground.
Mt. Adams, WA (12,500') background left and Mt. Hood, OR (11,300') background right.

The benefit of climbing here in the northwest in July is the stable weather.  So far in my experience the late summer and early fall are almost guaranteed to be completely dry, no rain, no humidity and very few storms. The downside to climbing at this time of the year is that you have to be off of dangerous slopes early in the day, long before direct sun has had a chance to warm and weaken the glaciers.  This would be particularly important given that our route would pass under several building sized towers of ice called seracs, which routinely topple over and crash down the mountainside.  So, we rose at midnight after precisely zero minutes of sleep, threw on our packs and harnesses and headed up.

The upper mountain and views of Mt. Adams.  

The route we climbed is called the Disappointment Cleaver, and the poor snow season over the winter combined with warmer than average temperatures had left it in pretty bad shape.  Typical snow slopes were turned into steep ice pitches and the thin snow cover exposed crevasses that you could lose your house in.  As we moved carefully upward the lack of sleep and acclimatization time began to catch up with me.  The route gets difficult between about 12,000 and 13,000 feet, where climbers must ascend the Disappointment Cleaver itself.  This is a fin of crumbling rock that is climbed to reach the upper Ingraham Glacier icefall.  This was the section to watch out for, exhaustion and altitude effects have set in while at the same time the terrain requires absolute concentration.  It is important to move quickly through many areas to avoid lingering below unstable seracs, but every step must be flawlessly placed.  A fall could send you and your partner down a steep slope, if the snow is too hard to stop yourself then you're going into a crevasse and then hundreds of feet to the bottom.  At this point I was very glad for my months of PMC preparation.  

Jamie nearing the final snowslopes on the upper mountain.  13,500'.  

Once above the upper Ingraham Glacier the most technical and dangerous parts are over, the terrain flattens out a little bit and from there to the summit is a more gentle climb.  I was glad that the scary stuff was over for the time being, but the final slopes to the top are a real struggle.  The pace is painfully slow but you're going as fast as you possibly can, you can see the top but it never seems to get any closer.  It's always funny to me planning our next moves in these situations, telling ourselves that we'll take a break in an hour when we get to that rock 100 feet in front of us.  Our rapid ascent and lack of time to prepare and acclimatize meant that dehydration, exhaustion and altitude sickness were most definitely hitting us pretty hard at this point.  As painful as it is, this close to the top and after everything we've done to get here, turning back is not an option.  The only option is to take one more step, and then one more step.  

Climbers negotiate the Ingraham Glacier icefall at 13,000'.  Don't blow it here.  

From a little further..

Further still. Those climbers are in the upper left hand corner.  

Finally, right around 8 am we reached the height of land and walked into the summit crater at 14,400 feet.  I have to admit, although I had dreamt of this moment for years, all I could think about was nausea.  I toppled over and fell asleep (or possibly unconscious) for a good 20 minutes.  By the time I came to, I was feeling slightly better and was able to enjoy our hard earned summit.  We took a few photos, I choked down half a bagel, and we began to prepare ourselves for a descent that neither of us were looking forward to.  

Summit shot.  Mt. Rainier, 14,400'.  

Representing PMC.  

Any conservative mountaineer like myself knows that to celebrate too much at the top of a dangerous mountain is to tempt the gods to put you in your place.  Any responsible mountaineer knows that the vast majority of climbing mishaps happen on the way down, not up.  Energy reserves are low, concentration lacks and the business of down-climbing sketchy ice and snow slopes is just more likely to result in a fall.  Add to that the fact that the sun was climbing higher in the sky and the snow was softening quickly leading to dangerous instability.  We remained on top just long enough to gather our wits, and then started down.  

Layers of ash and lava flows from previous eruptions. 

Thankfully the trip down was mostly uneventful.  We were caught in a little bit of a bottleneck on some of the more dangerous sections, which was rather unnerving.  When the weather is right for a summit attempt, climbers from all around come out to take a shot.  If enough climbers are trying to pass through the same difficult and dangerous sections, traffic jams can form leaving you to wait, perched on a soft snow ledge next to a bottomless crevasse.  After dealing with the icefall and the Cleaver we were mostly out of the woods.  At the bottom of the Cleaver, just as we thought we were moving out of the danger zone, a basketball-sized rock came tumbling down off of a cliff above and struck a climber just a few feet in front of us.  Jamie's quick wits and a loud warning may have saved this climber, it struck her arms as she raised them to protect her head.  Yet another reminder not to let your guard down until the mountain is in the rear view mirror of your car.  

Waiting for our turn to climb down the icefall.

Nearing camp.  

Finally, after more than 12 solid hours of hard labor, we arrived back at Camp Muir.  Jamie fell into the tent to get some much deserved sleep, but I could not stand the thought of another afternoon in relentless sunshine on the glacier.  There was a beautiful alpine stream down at the bottom of the mountain that I had seen on my way up, and draining exhaustion was not going to keep me from getting into it.  I flew down the mountain, half jogging and half skiing on the heels of my boots.  I did the 5 miles and 5,000 vertical feet back to the trailhead in just over an hour.  I felt it was well worth the extra effort as I sank into the freezing cold snowmelt of the Paradise River, washing away a couple of days worth of filth and numbing my aching bones.  It was only then that I congratulated myself on another summit earned, not to mention the hardest and highest one of my career thus far.  I had spent 30 hours on the mountain, all but about 5 of them spent busting ass.  I had done 20 solid miles, all of them at altitude, and about 10,000 feet of elevation gain.  Not a shabby couple of days of training.

Paradise earned.  (Mi9.com) 

That's it for now folks.  I am in the final few days before the ride, and a 30 hour ascent of one the hardest mountains in the country has not hurt my confidence.  Please check out my PMC profile and donate if you can, and be sure to check back later to find out how it all went.  Thanks for your attention and generosity lo these many months, wish me luck!

The Black Tusk

Just a couple of weeks now until the the ride, and I'm feeling pretty good.  The rides have been getting longer and tougher, and the steep British Columbia hill-climbs seem easier every time.  PMC donors have raised over $16,000,000.00 so far this year but we're not done yet with another 20 million or so to go, so please donate if you can!  I finally managed to get up into some real mountains this past week, on an overnighter with Bailey and the UBC outdoor club to The Black Tusk.  

Hiking through Taylor Meadows at 5,000' in Garibaldi Provincial Park.  

Mt. Garibaldi is the highest peak in the Vancouver area, a dormant stratovolcano that sits just north of the town of Squamish, a couple of hours drive from the city.  It is the centerpiece of the amazing Garibaldi Provincial Park, 750 square miles of rugged peaks, glaciers and alpine lakes.  The park offers backpacking, mountaineering and rock climbing, and in the winter world class ski touring.  This time I would be heading to Garibaldi for a two day trip up the Black Tusk, an ancient and extinct volcano and now a crumbling tower of frozen lava.  At 7,600 feet the Tusk is a worthy challenge, and while it can be done in a long day by a fit party, we decided to load up with heavy overnight gear and enjoy a full weekend in the alpine.  

A very pleasant camp at Taylor Meadows.

We started the weekend with a five mile hike through the usual forest of giants, up to the Taylor Meadows camp just below treeline at 5,000 feet.  The system of trails leading up to the alpine here is very well used, being so close to the city and offering relatively easy access to some of the best views in southern British Columbia.  The trails lower down on the mountain are wide and well maintained so the crowds were not a problem, and we made it out of the big trees and up onto the alpine flats by early afternoon.  

Nearing treeline on The Black Tusk.
The Tantalus Range, across the Squamish Valley, in the background.

We set up camp and ate a sandwich, and made our plans for the summit.  On most summer mountaineering trips on high glaciated peaks, the middle of the afternoon is not the time to make a summit attempt.  By the time the sun has fully risen these mountains are a dangerous mess of soft snow and crumbling rock.  The mountain is most stable in the early morning hours, when the snow has had a chance to refreeze overnight.  Climbers will often get an 'alpine start', rising well before dawn in the hopes of being on the summit by sunrise and off the most dangerous slopes before the midday sun hits them.  This strategy also minimizes the amount of time that climbers are exposed to the sun, from which there is no escape.  The sun at higher altitudes can be particularly strong, and reflects off of the snow to burn every unprotected corner of skin.  Besides sunburn, this kind of exposure can exhaust climbers and cause dehydration and even snow blindness.  On serious high altitude ventures above 10,000 feet this schedule is also imperative in order to acclimatize to the lower oxygen environment.  Climb too high too fast and one is at severe risk for altitude sickness, though this would not be a problem for us on the Tusk.  

Bailey takes in some views from the snowfields on the Tusk.

Given all of this, we had the decision to keep heading for the summit that same day, or hang out for the rest of the afternoon and set off early the next morning.  The Tusk is really only a half serious objective, there are no glacier crossings on the route we had ahead of us, and the poor snow season this winter in B.C. meant that there was little snow cover left.  We also had the prospect of a long afternoon at camp with little to do and lots of mosquitoes.  We did all the math, and decided that the route was short enough that we might as well give it a shot that afternoon, and turn back if the sun became too much to handle.  

Final snow and scree slopes before the summit pinnacle. 

So, we packed up water and food, helmets, extra layers and lots of sunscreen and hit the trail once again.  We made our way up through the last of the thinning trees and into steepening alpine meadows.  The meadows eventually gave way to dreaded scree, steep slopes of loose rock and ash from eruptions past that slide out from underneath you with every step.  Travel over this stuff is quite literally two steps forward one step back, and can be pretty tiring in the hot sun.  This finally turned to snow cover, and we had a reasonably easy climb up to the final summit spire as views of the Coast Range opened up around us.  

Bailey negotiates the summit scramble at 7,000' on the Tusk. 

After a short break at around 7,000 feet to catch our breath and take in the views, we set off for the final climb to the summit.  This part was what we had all come here for, a beautiful summit scramble up the final steep rock tower of the Tusk.  This tower is the frozen remains of what was once the magma conduit coming up through the volcano.  When this magma hardens it is stronger than the surrounding slopes of erupted ash and rock (that scree we hate).  The scree crumbles away over the years and all that is left is a near vertical tower of hardened lava. Climbing this stuff can be a little unstable but fun as heck, and the geologist in me ain't mad about it neither.

Having a good time.

Mt. Garibaldi 8,800' and Garibaldi Lake from near the top.

Crushed it.  

Bingo!  

Finally at the top, we relaxed and took photos and congratulated ourselves on a job well done.  We soaked in the 360 degree views of high glaciated peaks, and chugged water.  I'll admit that after going from sea level to nearly 8,000 feet in a single day, I had a couple of waves of the familiar altitude nausea but managed to keep it together until we began making our way lower down.  

Feeling congratulatory on the way down.

We hiked our way back down to camp, ate food, drank water and tried to relax in clouds of voracious mosquitoes.  The next day we packed up camp and headed off the mountain, but not before a stop at Garibaldi Lake.  This is the catchment for all the glacial melt water coming out of these mountains.  It is crystal clear, freezing cold and a spectacular shade of blue as a result of fine glacially milled rock dust suspended in the water.  It was painfully cold, but a welcome reprieve from the heat of the afternoon.  After a swim and a sandwich we hiked our way out of the park and back to the cars.  Another summit, another great weekend in the mountains and a good 20 miles and 8,000 feet of PMC training.  

Taking a dip in Garibaldi Lake.  Brr.

Hiking past Garibaldi Lake on the way out.  

The Garibaldi Lake Barrier.  This wall of frozen lava keeps the Garibaldi Lakes confined high in the alpine.
A major earthquake could rupture this wall, sending the contents of the lakes down through the populated
Squamish Valley.  A reminder of the living landscape on an active tectonic plate margin.  

That's all I got on that one.  I'll be heading back to Massachusetts in a week or so, but not before taking a shot at the highest Cascade volcano, 14,400 foot Mt. Rainier in Washington.  I'll get a blog up on that one before the ride so check back for that.  Please check out my PMC profile page and donate if you can, thanks for stopping by! 

St. Mark's Summit

Canada Day fireworks off of West Vancouver
viewed across English Bay from Kitsilano Beach.  

Hi there, thanks for stopping by!  The locals are out, the tourists have arrived and summer is in full swing here in Vancouver.  Just as I had hoped, July so far has been dry as a bone, and the outdoor activities and opportunities for fun in the sun are boundless.  I have been keeping it up for the PMC, biking, hiking, running, lifting, climbing, walking and swimming.  It has been a lot of fun but not always easy, and I have not yet found the time away from school to go for a big mountaineering objective.  This has been depressing to say the least, but the summer still has plenty of life left in her and I will get above the clouds soon enough.  Before I fill you in on the last couple of weeks of good times let me update you on the more than $14,000,000.00 raised so far for the PMC!  We have just a few more weeks before the ride, and a few more months before the October deadline to reach the $38,000,000.00 goal.  I know we can do it but we're going to have to dig deep, which incidentally is what I say to myself right before blacking out on the spin bike in front of Canada's hippest.

The Kitsilano Beach saltwater pool.
Downtown West End and North Shore Mountains in the background.  

Once the clouds and rain finally scram Vancouver turns into a summer paradise, and every corner of the city seems to offer up something different.  I don't mind telling you that our own neighborhood of Kitsilano Beach is one of the best.  Besides the beach of course there's the 450 foot long beachfront saltwater pool, parks, lawns, basketball and tennis courts and the seawall bike path that will take you pretty much anywhere in the city.  It is nearly impossible to be sedentary here, and also nearly impossible to walk by it all on my way to work in the morning.  As hard as it has been to juggle a master's program and PMC training, I couldn't imagine a better place to have to juggle it all.  Not far from all this, right across English Bay, are the North Shore Mountains which is where Bailey, Evan and I went for a day hike this week.  

Deep in the North Shore Mountains.    

The North Shore Mountains rise steeply from sea level to about 5,000 feet just north of Vancouver.  Their rugged slopes directly abut the city of North Vancouver, where dense urban neighborhoods stop and wilderness begins.  This wilderness continues northwards into the vast British Columbia Coast Range, and one would have to go over the Arctic and into Russia before finding another city of any considerable size.  These mountains dominate the view to the north from anywhere in Vancouver, and are a great place for a hiking, camping, skiing and climbing right outside the city.  With a free Saturday, Bailey and I invited my co-worker Evan to drive up to the Cypress Ski Resort and hike along the Howe Sound Crest to St. Mark's summit. 

The Lions (5,400') from the Howe Sound Crest Trail.  

The Howe Sound Crest Trail runs along a ridge high above the Pacific, going through dense rainforest and over 5,000 foot peaks.  It is a great place for training, the views are incredible, the trail is in great shape and the summits are all of varying difficulty.   With just a Saturday afternoon to burn we would be doing a relatively short section of the trail from the Cypress Resort to St. Mark's Summit.  With good weather and good trail, we decided to be happy with our short day and do it as fast as we could to get some good cardio pump.  We did about 8 miles and 1500 feet of elevation, and we did it in about 3 hours, with another hour or so on top so soak up the views.  The mountains here rise so steeply out of Howe Sound that the shoreline is almost directly below the ridge, and views from the peaks leave you feeling like you are floating right over the sea.  Tiny ferries zip around below your feet on their way to Vancouver Island, and the Sea-to-Sky highway snakes along the shore just out of reach. 

Bailey and Evan enjoy some views.

It was a short-ish day, but the heat, the steep terrain and our quick pace made for a great afternoon of PMC training.  Besides which, I can't complain with being able to enjoy a hike like this and be back in the city within a half an hour.   As much as I love Boston, I will definitely miss this place when I leave. Driving a half an hour north from downtown Boston, you'd probably wind up no further than the North End of downtown Boston.  Paul Revere and cannoli are great, but I prefer mountains.

Howe Sound and the Bowen Island group from St. Mark's Summit.  

Cooling off in some snowmelt.  Beautiful. 

That's it for this one, I'll be heading out to the Sunshine Coast here in British Columbia this week for some world class cycle touring so stay tuned for that.  Check out the PMC website for info and updates on this year's ride, and please head to my PMC profile and donate if you can.  I'm up to 25% of my goal, so thanks to everyone for your support, and thanks for stopping by!