I'd heard a lot of bad things about climbing Rainier - the campsites are crowded, you have slow people in front of you on the route, it's just a big long slog, etc. Finding people to climb it with could be fairly difficult, and then the weather has to cooperate. Still the mountain beckoned to me every time I saw it from the distance. So starting the beginning of June I started emailing all my climbing buddies every week trying to organize something. I'm sure they got tired of it. Finally as one weekend approached Erik and Uli wanted to go to and the weather was looking perfect. I wanted to do the Kautz because I'd heard fewer people do it.
We left Seattle at 7 am and were climbing up from Paradise (5,600')
by 11. It was raining lightly and visibility was about 20 feet.
We heard reports that the clouds lifted at about 9,000' so we weren't too
concerned. After some guesswork in the fog we dropped down to cross
the Nisqually Glacier, climbed the gully to the Wilson Glacier, and headed
up the Turtle Snowfield. It was warm, the snow deep and soft, and
progress was slow. Eventually Erik and I were pretty beat from kicking
steps. That's when we brought up our secret weapon, Uli Steidl, winner
of the Vancouver International Marathon and currently the third fastest
marathoner in Germany. We'd kept Uli in the middle of the rope crossing
the lower glaciers and now he surged up the Turtle Snowfield with impressive
vigor. Unfortunately Uli only weighs 130 lbs so Erik and I were still
punching through his steps :-(
The view from the Turtle Snowfield
We reached our camp of about 11,000' at around 6 pm. We chose
a spot along the ridge just below Camp Hazard to be safer from the icefall.
We were also finally above the clouds.
The icefall above Camp Hazard
Above the clouds at last at around 11,000'
We quickly melted some snow, ate, and tried to get some sleep. We set our alarms for 1 am and were heading up again by 2:00. From Camp Hazard we traversed below the icefall and got on the steep chute that leads to the Kautz Glacier. Climbing in the darkness by headlamp I tried to follow the tracks of previous climbers, hoping it would lead us to a boot track on the glacier that would show us a path around crevasses. The snow was deeply sun cupped and it was hard to discern boot marks from the natural snow texture. I thought I was following a boot track, but was it just my imagination? Then I found the ear loop from a pair of glacier glasses - climber twacks! Even better than wabbit twacks! We were on our way.
As the morning twilight began to illuminate the Kautz before us no major
crevasses were visible. I surged upwards eager to gain altitude,
but had to temper my pace as shortness of breath turned switchbacks into
something that felt a little like a drunken stagger. Living at sea
level and not really acclimated, 13,000' can really hit you. We climbed
the right side of the Kautz and crossed a jumble of ice onto the upper
Nisqually Glacier.
The day's first light between the Kautz and the Upper Nisqually.
A seemingly alien landscape of ice.
The shadow of Mt. Rainier is visible on the haze
Sunrise on Adams