Another Summit — 1 month ago
Worth doing!
‘It’s time.’
Those simple words sent my pulse racing and I became fully alert in seconds as adrenaline rushed through my body. Through the tent walls I saw the many headlamps flashing around camp and realized that rest of the group was already up and the final ascent of our trip was about to begin. I quickly dressed and stepped into the night air. The temperature was bitter cold, as the freezing level dropped to 9000 feet due to the weather front that was moving through the mountain. I wolfed down an energy bar and looked over my gears…harness, crampons, ice axe, extra cloth, water and food…
It was 2AM on July 16th, 2008, my climbing group had been camping and traveling on the glacier for the past six days, reviewing our crevasse rescue and snow navigation skills. We all had planned and trained hard for the trip, and our efforts was about to be judged by a grueling test of mental and physical endurance as we prepare to ascent the summit of Mt. Rainier looming over the camp site at 14,410 feet above the sea level.
I grabbed my gears and found our mountain guide a short distance away, checking and measuring the distance between the clip-in points on the rope that would literally tie our lives together. He noticed my approach and nodded in greetings as the other members of my rope team gathered around me. We strapped on our avalanche beacons and double checked each other’s gears; there would be no accidents due to negligence this night.
‘Everyone ready? asked our guide.
We roped up and waited as the other two rope teams finalized their setup. Our breath drifted like veils of mist in the beams of our headlamps, the air was crisp, with an almost sharp edge to it. I looked up and saw the Milky Way stretching across the span of the night sky. Then we began to move.
‘How’s everyone doing?” the voice of our lead guide came through the radio.
It was 3:54AM. We were in high spirits as we quickly pulled our down-filled parkas from our packs and hunkered down for our first rest break. It was still dark; the sun would not rise for almost another two hours. I drank a third of my first liter and swallowed two pack of energy gel, solid food is great when you actually have the time to chew and digest. The headlamps above us moved and it was time to continue our climb.
The snow was hard, perfect for the sharp points of our crampons. I looked to the east and saw the first shade of pre-dawn sun tainting the sky. We were at 12,000 feet, but things were not all well.
‘Hold on guys.” said our guide.
Moments earlier one of our teammates had experience a sudden onset of dizziness and shortness of breath. We were now stopped dead in our tracks as his conditions worsened. It was a classic case of altitude sickness, and the only cure was to descend… Decisions had to be made and made fast to ensure the safety of our afflicted companion and the rest of the team.
I stood shivering as the guides traversed the mountain side. The water in my bottle had partially frozen in the cold when I was told that another climber had became ill and a guide would accompany both of our stricken friends back to camp while the rest would continue on. The sun begun to rise from its slumber over the horizon, just a speck of brightness, then a little more…
‘See you back at camp!” I called down to the descending team, then looked up to my guide and said, ‘So, two-man rope team eh? This should be fun.” In my mind I screamed… ‘Oh God, please don’t let either of us fall!”
My guide smiled at me and replied ‘Let’s get moving, we need to catch up to the teams ahead of us.”
I plunged my ice axe into the snow. The crevasse was narrow, but I could not see the bottom as it extends to either side. The two of us had climbed on for another hour and I could see the other teams through the breaks between seracs. Icefalls are very pretty to look at, but definitely not a place for any sane man to linger…
The sun had chased away the chills. I could feel the thinner air at 14,000 feet as I forced myself to breathe deeper and faster to infuse more oxygen into my blood. Step by step, feet by feet, we continued to climb. I felt no fatigue as the rush of approaching Summit loomed in my mind.
8:27AM.
Before me lied the perfect ring that marks the crater of the dormant volcano that is Mt. Rainier. I had done it! I had reached another summit…
