Mt. Rainier Climb – Trip Report

On Sunday July 19, 2009 (update: silly date mistakes) around 9:00am, my team summited Mt. Rainier via the Emmons Glacier route. In my previous post I took a moment to describe and elaborate on the cause I would like to support as part of this climb. The full photo album of this trip is shared here.

 

 Our Team on the Summit – 14,440 ft!

Maris and Myself at 14,440 ft!

The Team

This climb was part of Olympia Mountaineers club climbs and was led by Colin. Originally we planned on having four rope teams but a few people cancelled on the climb last minute so we had three rope teams of three people each. I wasn’t signed up to be a rope lead but John and Bonnie were gracious enough to let me lead a rope. We planned to hike to the high camp on day 1, do a summit bid starting midnight and come back to high camp and rest for remaining of day 2 and then walk out to cars on day 3.

The Route

The Emmons route compared to the more popular DC route is a little longer and little more technical. I have done the DC route before and I felt that Emmons route showed a little more of the true mountain – lots of crevasses and wind!

Details

Day 1

We started at about 10am from the White river parking lot which is about 4500ft to get to our high camp (Camp Schurman) at about 9500 ft.

I got to lead a rope on this climb, I have been mountaineering for only a few years now and this was my first glacier rope lead. Here is an interesting picture on the first day as we were heading to the Camp Schurman high camp, seems like I’m leading my team to a crevasse – but hey there was a snow bridge there.

 

We got to Camp Schurman at about 4:00pm and were told by the ranger that no camping spots are available on the rock. For next couple of hours we were digging snow platforms, and finally had our tents set up around 6:30pm.

Day 2

We woke up around midnight to start our climb up on Emmons Glacier. By the time we started (around 1am) there were already a quite a few partied ahead of us. I glitter of head lamps covered the mountain.

We had been informed by the ranger that the route was pretty straight forward expect for one tricky section which has a crevasse on side and a drop off on the other. Here is a picture of that section, while I was coming down it.

 

At this section – which was about at 11,800ft we spent about an hour and half waiting for other teams to pass, as most of them were putting an anchor before crossing. We were quite a bit concerned because with this lag we were running a quite a bit late, as it was already 5am! and we had about 2500+ ft to go and less than 5 hour before we absolutely need to turn back.

Fortunately, after crossing on top of this serac our three rope teams (Colin's, Josh’s and Mine) moved reasonably fast and we were at the summit about 9:15 pm. Here is picture of our climb leader Colin leading -

It was very windy on the summit. We paid our homage and dedications quickly and started on the way down at about 10am.

As they say the trip up is the easy part and other half on way down causes most mountaineering accidents! Well we did fairly well on the way down, we got to our high camp at about 2pm! However Mr. V, was a little slower and punched through a crevasse. It was only to be realized later than this punching through Crevasse will cause we some ankle trouble and an ER visit!

After getting to the camp we decided to take a quick nap and food break, pack out tent and be walking down by 4pm. This was slight change in the plan because the original climb plan was to stay as high camp on day 2 and then get back on cars on the next day. However the day 1 night was so windy and stormy at the high camp that no one could sleep. In fact, we were grateful than our 3-season vestibule less tent held in that kind of wind! So in the pursuit of some sleep we left the camp on day 2 itself!

The rest of the way down, as actually eventful! Mr. V successfully managed to get his a slight cut in chin while glissading the inter-glaciers. However, skipping the uncomfortable cut the glissade were fun!!!

So by the time we got to the Glacier basin and started hiking out on the trail, my injured ankle had surfaced itself and grown in to an unbearable pain! With a 60lb pack it was increasingly becoming uncomfortable to walk out. I let Colin (our climb leader) know that and subsequently graciously Bonnie and John stayed with myself and Maris to only re-surface at the trail head in 4 hours, around 9pm! Thanks to Maris for carrying our tent for the test of way and thanks to Colin, John, and Bonnie for keeping us company! We did enjoy the awesome meadows and the views though!

 

When we re-grouped around 9pm at the parking lot we decided to go for a late dinner in Enumclaw! We feasted in Mazatlan Mexican restaurant and every sip of my Dos Equi helped me relieve the ankle pain. After getting to Capitol hill, I made a late night ER visit and had my ankle checked and chin sealed.

The good news is that nothing is broken (as yet) but there is quite a bit of swelling hiding any other issues. Now the bad news - I don’t know if I will be able to go on our planned Seattle to San Francisco bicycling tour starting this Saturday :(.

Thanks to Colin, John, Bonnie, Josh, Ted, Chris, Andrew for letting me be part of this climb and thanks to lovely Ms. Maris was getting me on this climb! Colin did a great job leading the climb, it was my pleasure to be in such an awesome company!

Mt. Rainier Climb – The Cause

I thought I would take a moment and elaborate on my personal and professional causes which I would like to evangelize as part of my climb.

Personal

Earlier I got email from Aparajita suggesting like Alok’s Rainier Climb, I should fundraise for Asha. I like Asha’s cause and zero-overhead approach, so please donate for Asha to support my climb. Asha has supported a project in my hometown in India – the Mayaboli school for hearing impaired. For those who know me and would like to personally donate for this cause I would be really happy to receive donations for the same. This is the same school for which I fundraised in my last Rainier climb. Please note unlike the general Asha the donations for Mayaboli are not 509(c)3 and hence not tax deductible.

Mayaboli School For Hearing Impaired

Team Cause
I also want to promote my team HealthVault and have this climb help spread the word about need to improve the state of health care, particularly the need for individual citizens to assert right to Health Data.

Endorse HealthDataRights

To share to your success stories and learn more about what other folks are doing to make themselves an active participant in the Health eco-system – do take a look at http://www.iamenabled.com (please note – this is Microsoft sponsored venture).

Share your stories, join the movement

Ice Climbing Newb!

Image via WikipediaOn Saturday I had a great time chomping on the Serac's in the lower Coleman glacier on Mt.Baker! Rob was helping me learn the basics of Ice Climbing. Well both of us forgot our camera's so no pictures. But truly the weather was way better than we expected and we had good view of Mt. Baker and the high meadows were really pretty.

So what all did I learn? The one main thing to learn about crampons is what ever you do try to get the most points in. What this implies is if you are coming downhill then do freaking edge (you will trip!), but try to roll your ankle towards the downhill side and get more points in, and better is dont edge at all!

One trick of the trade of secret I learn from Rob is how to position and balance myself. The idea is to swing the tool, hand from it with your wrist and then then move your legs up such that one leg is on either side of the tool. Once you are in balance and have three point of contact just stand up and swing the other tool. This way one doesn't barn door and uses much of legs.

I over used by hands, had a very tight grip and was very sloppy with my footwork. Well the result is i gotjavascript:void(0) a little sore and ran out of gas much earlier than i expected.

I have a lot to learn, but meanwhile just for shits and giggle check out this nice beginner video on ice climbing. And yep! thanks to Rob for hauling me in and introducing to Ice Climbing!:

Mt. Baker Climb

Maris and myself went for a Glacier climb with Mountaineers June 29-30. This was my first this season and Maris' second in a week! Pictures of the trip are shared here and a video is below:



The weather was really awesome! We started from the trail head about 11:30am and reached hogsback around 3:30pm, we decided to set our camp (base camp) here since we had running water and roping up and getting up to high camp, melting water + dinner would put us to bed pretty late. By the way the journey to the camp was not as easy - the trail is in a really in bad shape and we had to scramble our way in and walk over thin logs with a 50 pound pack :). And Oh! one interesting thing happened, Maris dropped her pole on a shitty slope and i volunteer to go get it. I had to go through some loose gravel and some snow but as soon as i grabbed the pole on of my feet slip and before i realized i was doing a butt ride towards a raging creek :). Fortunately i had my ice axe and i could self-arrest in time and make my way up safely!! This was a pretty freaky i think everyone was a little haired up seeing it ;).

Anyways we started our climb around 2:00am from 5700'. After making our way up the first slope one of the rope mates felt a little weird to after a lot of back and forth Jim (the leader) decided to go back with him. So we were then five folks on one rope 50m rope ! Anyways the weather held great and we were on the summit at about 8:30!! We made our way back down to camp at about noon and headed out from the cars at about 4pm to have the much missed Mexxi-Mamma burger ..

Backpacking south olympic coast

Here is the Video account of the backpacking trip Maris, Myself and Jessica (Maris' ex-housemate) did this Memorial day weekend.



Pictures of the trip are shared here.

The three day trip was a fabulous excursion in the Pacific Northwest's flora & fauna, tide charts and yep the longest wilderness coastline!! All of these were unparalleled to my any relevant experiences before! I can go on and on about how i loved the coast but i think i'll leave you guys to enjoy the video for now!

How To Start Climbing 5.12...

There are a lot of people aspiring to climb 5.12, well for me 5.12 is the ceiling ! Last year i could lead 5.8, atmost 5.9 trad and 5.9 (consistently) and atmost 5.10 sports. Well thats all numbers and very geeky rock rat talk! What i really aim to achieve is getting more comfortable on the rock. When i first started rock climbing two years ago I feared heights :), well the reason i climbed was just to get over my fear! Now i have come along long ways :).

Last season I started leading trad, I learned a lot of composure and mind tricks! Almost everyone can climb 5.8/5.9 but when it comes to leading it all in the mind! While doing a leading harder stuff i learnt from a friend and colleague (Damon) a very cool trick of extending your arms and using your legs. Damon is an awesome climber and when he climbs it almost looks out of a video, also note that most rock climbing books and websites stress on the fact of using your legs and not relying on hands. It was sort of 'AHA' moment when Damon showed me how to hang on hands and move your legs up and then stand on a good hold, and keep repeating the same tactic. I wish i had a picture or a video to illustrate. This has helped me a lot, many time i'm just able to cruise up on the juggy 5.10's without any problem using this technique. Well, no only if I had a cool technigue to negiotiate the tiny handholds i would be a 5.10 champ :).

Anyways, to the point this season i'm planning to use this book to first get the 5.10's and then move on the oh well.. lets see :). But from what my friends (Wayne) have told me about the book, it seems to lay out a great process of trying to make training pyramid of grades you can climb to grade you want to achieve, end of the day its all about miles and constant tiny improvements with 'AHA' moments inter-spread.. sounds familiar ??

Star Chek and Climbing in Squamish~!

IMG_0077,
originally uploaded by vbha.

Wow-~! last couple of days flew pass!! I had an amazing time climbing with Wayne, Jeff and Nick in Squamish, BC.

We arrived in Squamish late Monday night and were fortunate to find a spot in the climbers camping ground. Apparently even on a weekday a tonne of folks were waiting for the weather to clear out so that they can climb~!

On Tuesday as planned we went to Star Check to do the 4 pitch 5.9 sport climb, which according to Wayne will bring smile to your face!! Unfortunately due to the rain in the past week or so the route was totally moss and wet! We gave up on that and actually headed to Smoke Bluffs to try some single pitch cragging. During the whole day i lead two climbing one 5.6 and other 5.8 and followed Wayne on 5.7 (which i couldnt lead as i kept slipping at the start) and other two start 5.7. I was almost spent and pumped out by the time we wrapped off. While in the other area Nick and Jeff were trying to get out a stuck cam, but after trying several times with no luck we gave off and around 6pm or so we headed for the recreation centre for a quick shower, a hot tub dip and then had a great meal in the town! Over the meal we dicussed and i concluded that i wont be up for Diedre, i didnt want to crap out on pitch 4 and have Wayne haul me back. So the plan for Wednesday was Jeff and Nick would do Diedre and my-self and Wayne would try some other climbs near the climbers camp.

Wednesday morning Jeff and Nick went ahead for Diedre with a backup plan to do other difficult ones in case its crowded, and myself and Wayne went to the 5.8 near campground. Our climb was a little damp towards the start after trying for a bit Wayne and myself decided to go try something else. Well!! actually we ended up going to Star Check! We started climbing star check around 11:15am. Wayne lead the first pitch, i was a little scared with the exposure and the raging river beneth. After getting up to first belay station I was in double mind weather or not to lead the next pitch Wayne convinced me that if I can lead this one (5 bolts, 5.7) then i can lead the 5.9. Well i went for it a little sketched at the beginning but as i got on the arete and clipped in the second bolt i was little more confident and actually i enjoyed the rest two bolts. I did out a piece in between the first and second bolt. I belayed wayne for the second pitch. Wayne lead the third short pitch which could have been combined with the second pitch. After coming up the third pitch I looked at the 5.9 and said no way i can lead it, i was under impression that the route had only three pitches and we were done ;). After a little chat with other pair of climbers who were rapping down Wayne headed for this pitch. He looked really at ease on the 5'9 move! I had to struggle a little while following on this move but didnt actually feel that bad! Voila after completing the pitch i really felt great and a combination of fear and smile crossed me :). It was really a great experience.

After finishing Star Check myself and Wayne went across the road to do some climbing near the water, we tried some 5.6-10a friction stuff on a small wall there. Where as Nick and Jeff were doing a 5.10a variation of the St Vitus' Dance extra since Diedre was crowded. We could see them rapping from the parking lot. While they rapped down we headed to the amazing rec centre for some hot tub!

We started our trip back to seattle around 6:30pm and all along the way i kept thinking of the raging river and the awesome views Star Check offered..it definately feels like a great experience in hindsight and something which i will remember for a long time!! Thanks Wayne, Jeff and Nick for dragging me along!!

Backpacking with Mountain Lions, RattleSnakes and Maris!

IMG_0008,
originally uploaded by vbha.

Man! memorial weekend was awesome, we went backpacking on the lakeshore trail! More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaibhavb/tags/backpackinglakechelansummer2007/ the two days of 17.5 was action packed with sightings of mountain lion and rattle snakes. We did make it in time for the ferry back from Stehekin to Fields landing and yep! we did manage to get lunch in Stehekin!. Oh ya !! we also figured out how people in stehekin get their cars!

Well! this isnt exactly detailed but more interesting details coming up, soon!!

Lead on traditional rock climbing routes - woho!

I'm a new man today!! I lead few respectable trad routes this weekend :). I was freaked out but felt really good as i was doing it, I did the clamshell crack (almost 30+ ft), other route on middle clamshell and lower clamshell.

Mt. Rainier - A Blissful Climb!!

Vaibhav at Mt. Rainier Summit
Originally uploaded by vbha.

Yesterday I was fortunate to be on Mt. Rainier, such an awesome day, great views and gracious weather. This was one of the most blissful climb i have done. I was enjoying each moment of the climb and the motto was enjoy the journey than the end! Nine of us summited at about 9:00ish am. Pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaibhavb/tags/mtrainier2006/

We started the climb on Saturday Aug 5, 2006 at about 9:30am from the Paradise parking lot. We was team of 12 lead by Olympia mountaineer Barney. Going at an easy pace we reach camp Muir at 2:00pm. The weather was awesome and blissful vista. I tented up with Robert. We had our dinner at 5:30pm. I really enjoyed the Mountain house Pasta i bought for dinner! We were planning to start the summit day at 11:30pm, it was going be a one long day from base camp to summit and back to cars! So after cranking up tonne of water from ice got to bed at 6:30pm.

Barney woke us all by 11:00pm the same evening and after roping up we left for destination 14411ft. We had about 4500ft of elevation to cover and the plan was to do 500ft per hour and call if a day if we dont summit by 10am. With tonnes of folks attempting the summit and the RMI light lamp crew we slowed a bunch. At Ingram flats Michael a little fatigued, called it a day and decided to stay. From 4 ropes team and 12 member crew we went down to 3 roped teams with 11 people. For another 3 and half hours we travelled the nasty and steep rock route to get on top of dissapointment cleaver. It was 5:30am and our team was ready to launch from the cleaver! However we doing a very slow pace and with this rhythm we could never make the summit before 10am, however every was feeling quite strong! Barney with Garette and Robert made a call to take back Coleen and have the rest of crew give a shot to the summit!!

Garette from assiting Barney become the climb lead. At 5:30am we just took of for the summit, Garette really pulled hard and I kept up with him while the other rope teams (Robert and Peter) were hauling their asses behind us as well. After about an hour of climbing I asked Garetter to slow down a bit so that i can keep up - man he was just running!! We had to take a de-route from the standard path as lot of crevasses had opened up. After solid hour and half of climbing we were at 13400ft and there we saw the hope of summitting!!! We kept up the pace and at 8:30am we were at the lip of the crater, booyaa!!! We all then shot for the true summit at the other side of crater. Very strangely the whole journey seemed to have a very satisfying resemblance to life, I enjoyed each moment of it but never was really crazy about a great end, but you know if you play it well you do succeed!! Soo.. we took a log of summit pics, signed the log, eat, drank, relaxed, Jeff and Larry even sh*?ed :) at 10am we headed back to the base camp!!!

From Summit to Cleaver to Ingram flats to Camp Muir we were back !! The down climbing had really killed me, my inned thigh muscles and calves are still sore!!!! We got at the base camp at 3, Barney had graciously melt us some water. I immediately guled a bit and stared packing for way down!!! We left Camp Muir at 4pm and reached cars at about 7:00pm, I was really taking it slow and for last mile i almost baby stepped! Robert and Garette hung out with me all the while testing out all the possible trail benches!!!!

From Saturday 9:00am to Sunday 7:00pm the whole journey was blissful!!! I'm really glad to have done this and lucky to have a great team and amazing weather!!

I did the climb to fund raise for a non-profit clinic for the needy in my home area, Nashik. In case you are interested to help out to help this clinic get started please give me your donation checks. This effort is not under any US-NGOs but I’m trying to get this running myself – with local help and charities. Will let donors know about the progress of project as it un-rolls.

Sahalee Peak - Glacier Cimb

At the ridge
Originally uploaded by vbha.

The weekend of July 4th I did the Sahalee peak climb through Quien Sabe glacier. It was such an awesome day, my most scenic climb so far. We slept under the huge and threatening Johanesburg mountain and then hauled about 12 hour day to complete the glacier climb, the last portion of it was a class 3/4 scramble. In this picture I'm traversing a very narrow and exposed ridge making way towards the last pitch! I was holding my breadht - dont fall, dont fall dont fall!! But hey now i'm Mountaineers Basic graduate!! hurray I have completed all my required alpine, glacier and rock climbs!!

My First Summit!!!

Unicorn-Panorama
Originally uploaded by vbha.

So my first summit!! I summited Unicorn this saturday with my mentor Ed. We traversed from the trail head on Unicorn glacier to reach the base of peak. From the base we did a roped rock climb of about 40 feet to the summit. The whole round trip was about 6 hours and the weather was awesome!! This picture is the stichted panorama from the unicorn peak and as you notice the prominent feature in the panorama is Mount Rainier :). Climb on!!

Excursions In Mountaineering - Snow Camping and Glacier Climbing

TheBaricade
Originally uploaded by vbha.

This weekend I enjoyed amazing time overnight blacier climbing around stevens pass. I learnt some basic techiques for glacier climbing like stepping, using the ice axe, demo of cravasse rescue and knowing snow you are climbing on.

Here are picture of the trip by rockymountain.

In this picture I'm standing next the bunker tent myself and David (my tent-mate) made up with advice and help from Rayner (our trip leader). This was the first time I camped in snow. Tricks like putting snow between raincover and tent to form an insulating layer, assiting tent access using feet hole and building a brick baricade around tent for protecting - are some of the things we learnt with this.

Rappelling

Rappelling
Originally uploaded by vbha.

Boooya~! My third climb, I climbed up mainly using the cracks and nice footholds with a backpack and extra water :). You can see me here Rappelling down from this climb, it was awesome, sunny and 1500 ft above sea-level :). Rock-on i would say ...

Rock Climbing Mt. Erie!

Patrick trying rope three
Originally uploaded by vbha.

Yesterday i did my first rock climbing ever. Through Mountaineers Rock 2 field trip we did some runs on Mt. Erie. It was awesome to do three climbs using techniques like edgeing, manteling, crack climbing etal and the weather was a lot better than I expected. Just couldn't get enough of this thrill. Watch out for some rapelling pics and more of climbing stuff as i learn the ropes of this ride :).