First Summit, Emmons Glacier route

Im listening to Innocense Mission - Another Country
Feeling sore

We left Seattle around noon on Friday. It was already hot and the word on the street was for record temps this weekend. A look to the forecast, and the freezing level was to hover around 15,000 feet. Well above the summit of Mount Rainier. Our expectations were high. I had made 3 prior full-fledged summit attempts to be shut out all 3 times. Once due to illness, and twice thanks to the weather. This weekend was looking good.

We arrived White River Campground and got to work. The hike from the car to Glacier Basin had us on a quick pace. No doubt driven by the anticipation and adrenaline at the thought of standing at the top of the great hill. There was no snow and the shade of the canopy was appreciated each time it re-appeard after we were left exposed to the sun. We marched on with Camp Curtis as are target for the night. It had cooled off and we wanted to scale the inter-glacier without the horrendous heat. On our first attempt on this route, we had lost a climber to heat exhaustion by scaling the glacier in mid-day.

The boot-pack up the inter-glacier was wonderful. We had crampons with anti-bott devices, but probably didnt need them. We used our trekking poles, and didnt rope up. It was as nice an ascent as any slog up the Muir Snow-field. The word on the street was the route above was in just as good a shape. We reached Camp Curtis just before dark, and slept well through the night. The temperature never dipped below 40 degrees.

The next morning we moved down the
Brenden on 07.26.06 @ 11:47 AM PST [link] [No Comments]