Mount Rainier Climb - DC Route

Date: 7/14 - 7/16

Party: Doug Shurman, Chris Kirsten, Lori Kirsten, Scott Smutz

Day 1 - Camp Muir

We left the Paradise parking lot at approximately 10am. The conditions were extremely warm, and humid. The goal was to gain about 4,000ft to establish camp at our reserved site near "Moon Rocks" on the Muir snowfield just below the huts. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and were pelted with high winds during the middle of the night. After dinner we realized that we were already running lower than we had anticipated on fuel. This was enough of a concern that we decided to only fire the stoves up if necessary. The number one priority would be to melt snow for water for drinking and eat whatever we had available in our packs.


Day 2: Ingraham Flats

We ended up getting up around 8am, packed up our gear and climbed up to11,100 at the Ingraham glacier. We roped up as a single four Pearson team and traversed the cowlitz glacier to access the flats which is a common camping area for climbers. Finally we gained cathedral ridge at approximately 11am. We were met with high winds yet again which kicked up dirt, pebbles and other unpleasant surprises. We finally arrived at camp and had dinner. We had reports from other climbers that people were having the poles from their four season tents snapped in half. Lori ended up having the outer wall of her tent slightly torn from the rough conditions.

Day 3: Summit Day


I was tasked with being the one to periodically check on the weather during the night to see if we had any reasonable chance of a summit bid. I woke up at 12:30am and looked outside to see nothing but stars in the sky and other climbers with headlamps heading up the mountain. This was it, now or never. I woke my partners up and we started to crampon up and left camp by 1:30-2am. We began by making a rising traverse over the Ingraham glacier where we were soon met by a wide crevasse that we had to hop. After ascending the cleaver, we got to the icefall which was heavily broken. Below illustrates the crux climbing move of the icefall that we dealt with. We protected it with pickets and were able to move through fairly efficiently.

As we moved up the mountain the winds became stronger. By the time we reached 13,200 we saw the sunrise over the horizon which was the only thing we were able to enjoy to keep our mind off the face numbing wind. We finally got to the crater rim at approximately 8:15am. We had been climbing for about 5 1/2 hours. At this time we rejoiced in exhaustion, and walked down into the crater to the other side we enjoyed the views and singed the summit log. We knew the mountain wasn't going to give up that easily. On our descent of the cleaver, we climbed into a whiteout with dense fog and wind where it became bitter cold. We had no choice but to self belay certain sections because of the high winds were making us unstable in getting down quickly.

Once we arrived back at Cathedral gap, the winds continued to kick up dust, sand and rock. We had a close call where the tailing rope caught a boulder (approx 40lbs) and then dislodged. We yelled "ROCK!!", but at that point it was too late and as Lori turned around it hit her from behind and threw her onto her back in the scree slope. My first thought was complete horror, being sure that she was seriously injured. Thankfully enough, she came away unscathed and we continued down to Muir.
















We finally got to the cars at approximately 5:15pm at which time we threw down our packs and took the long ride out of the park to find a decent meal. We ended up eating in Spanaway at some dive pub that had mediocre food and mediocre service.