Adventures At Rainier





Tuesday, July 24, 2012  Mt. Rainier

Thank you Lord!!!  We woke up to a beautiful, gorgeous sunny day and guess what we saw outside our hotel....Mt. Rainier.  I know that the Lord blessed us, with both safety on Sunday with the blown tire but we then changed our Rainier date to today.  We can see the most beautiful mountain in the world.  Yeah!!!!

Mt. Rainier....HERE WE COME!!!!!    We arrived later than we hoped, around 1pm.  We got the boys ready for their hike and set them off.  We prayed for their safety, strength and wisdom in climbing and then they set off to conquer the mountain.  Mt. Rainier is 14,400 feet and Camp Muir is at 10,300 feet.  We started at Paradise which is 5,300 feet so it was going to be a BIG climb.  I was nervous for the boys as Dave and I had attempted to summit many years ago, so I knew how difficult the climb was going to be.  We had climbed to Camp Muir the day before and then started our summit at 1am.  It was one of the most amazing and taxing adventures that I have ever attempted.  There is nothing like climbing in snow to the light of a star-lite sky.  We saw a beautiful sunrise but unfortunately, we hit the first snowstorm of the year.  We were turned back shy of the summit and climbed (in the snowstorm) all the way back down to Paradise where we arrived at 10 pm.  It was a big day, to say the least.  So....I was excited for the boys to experience this but also nervous for them.



Jonathan's marmot.



After Dave, Josh and Chris set off, Jonathan, Annika and  I checked out the visitor's center.  We watched a great movie on Mt. Rainier and hit the gift shop. Then we started our own hike....up to a wonderful snowfield.  WOW!!  What an incredible hike that we are blessed to take.  God has blessed us with such a gift of a beautiful day to enjoy this incredible mountain.  We walked up (and I have to say the climb was steep- I was really praying for the guys!).  We enjoyed our walk and



Annika's snowman, Henry.

often stopped to smell the flowers and enjoy the view.  We got up to the snowfield and the kids were so excited to run, play, slide, jump, make snowmen and throw snowballs in the snow.  Their hands did get chilly after touching the snow but we were completely comfortable in shorts and t-shirts.  We hiked up pretty far in the snowfield and would stop to rest and enjoy the view.  We were up in the snowfield for about 3 hours and it was heavenly.  Jonathan loved taking pictures and took some wonderful one of the trees, mountain and the beautiful wildflowers.

Annika taking a little rest.

As the sun started going down, we headed back down the mountain.  We had a wonderful afternoon playing and enjoying our time together.  We arrived back down in Paradise around 6:40 pm so we checked out the rest of the Visitor's Center before it closed at 7 pm.  Then we got some dry clothes on and went to get some food at the cafe in the Paradise Lodge. It was a beautiful building and there was someone playing piano which we enjoyed.  Then we headed back to the parking lot to wait for our guys to come down. It ended up being only about an hour that we waited for the guys, and we listened to some of Narnia on CD.

Meanwhile, the boys kept climbing and climbing.  There was a lot of snow field to climb in, in fact the first thing Chris said when he got down was he hated snow. :)  They left Paradise at 1:40pm and ended up reaching Camp Muir at 7:00 pm.

Dave here.  We had an excellent climb and Josh and Chris did great.  Josh was slightly under the weather but powered through.  Chris was feeling good and could have "short roped" us both up.  I did drop my camera at about 8500 ft, and didn't notice it missing until 9000+ ft.  Losing the camera would mean no pictures for the entire hike and the thought made me sick (and the $150 cost of the camera).  I hiked down and was ecstatic to just barely see it sticking above the snow and still working.  Then came the hike back up to where the boys were waiting.  A quick note, hiking poles are crucial for any serious mountaineering.  I don't think we would have made the 5,000 ft vertical climb without them.  Especially with the extra 2 gallons of Gatorade that I apparently lugged up and down.

People camping by the Cowlitz glacier
near Camp Muir

The final 1000 vertical feet are the toughest because the camp never seems to get closer, but the boys powered through.

Josh and Chris were the youngest by about 10 years at Camp Muir.  We were slightly tempted when we saw that there was space available in the climbing hut at the camp, but we would have needed crampons, ice axes, a climbing rope, snow anchors, etc. for a summit attempt.  Next time.
We made it down in about 1 hour, 45 minutes and this included numerous glissading runs (sliding down the slope at sometimes high speeds).  I am very proud of the boys effort and couldn't have asked for more.  I told Tracy later that Josh and Chris had both found some iron inside.

 

On the way down

Camp Muir with the climber's hut.

I can't tell you how excited I was to see the boys coming out on the trail head.  Chris actually spotted me first and gave a huge wave with his pole.  Thank you Lord for your protection!  Thank you for the Magical day that you gave us.  They boys got off the mountain at 9:15pm and we were on the road about 9:35pm heading toward my Aunt Denise (my mom's sister) and Uncle Terry's house, which is in Yakima, WA. It was a 2 hour drive and we arrived around 11:30pm....very happy to climb into bed after climbing the mountain.  We were greeted by their cat, Allie, who was very pleased to see us and we were very happy to be there!



Our triumphant climbers



Good bye Mt. Rainier!  Thank you for an AWESOME day!