Thanks for sharing. I am a beginner so don’t have much input. But I would be curious of other coaches and experienced climbers.jeremy
Mt.Rainier Climb Trip Report
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Alright, sharing my recent time on Rainier with the group. @MarkPostle your friend was right the weather wasn’t our friend!
So – first I didn’t quite make the summit got to 13,500ft and turned around. We went up the Ingraham Direct from our camp on the flats at about 11,100ft.
Our hike up was as follows:
Day 1: Paradise Trailhead to Camp
Muir 5500ft to 10,000ft about 4.5 miles of ack weight 50lbs
Day 2: Stuck at Muir due to weather
Day 3: Camp Muir 10,000ft to Ingraham Flats 11,000ft via Cathedral Gap
Day 4: Ingraham Flats to Summit(attempt) via the Direct Route 11,000ft to 13,500(turn around point) Pack weight maybe 10lbsI decided to turn around for a few reasons:
1. My legs felt pretty dead – breathing was ok but my legs were really tired.
2. The winds were gusting between 40-50 mph
3. The last segment below the rim was pretty icey.When I added all those up I didnt feel secure leading my rope team the last 900 feet.
Just for reference I have climbed to the summit previously via the DC route and done some other stuff at higher altitudes so don’t think that was a deal breaker.
To me I think my legs did not fully recover from the hike up to Muir from Paradise. The climb is ~4.5 miles and 4500ft of elevation. My pack weight was 50lbs. In my previous climb we camped lower on night 1 (maybe 7500ft) and did not try for the summit until day 6 from Ingraham.For the Coaches:
1. Should I focus more on heavy carries to improve this?
2. Is the (lack) of acclimatization impacting ability to recover en route / at altitude?
3. Does this just point to needing to improve base strength?Separate but related – I would love to hear ideas on how to fuel properly during this. The freeze dried backpacker meals were not my favorite! I did bring up about 3000 calories per day – didn’t quite consume it all but tried to force it once we were above 10k.
For the group, love to hear your thoughts or any similar experiences.
Happy to share more here in the forum, via email or during the next Zoom.
Best,
Steve O.
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