Rainier - Emmons Glacier

July 2008

On Sunday afternoon Ted Coxworth, his dad, and I headed down to ashford to the Whittaker bunkhouse. We were met by Jesse Newman, and proceeded to have an interesting time talking about Jesse's planned climbing style:

Ted: Hey Jesse, did you bring a bivy sack for yourself?

Jesse: No, I couldn't find it

Ted: Um, what are you going to do?

Jesse: Man, bivy sacks are too heavy anyway, I'm sleeping out in the open.

So, with the sleeping arrangements in place, we decided to ask Jesse about his meal planning for the trip:

Me: So, what did you bring to sustain yourself for the trip?

Jesse: I'm going to save so much weight on this trip, almonds and olive oil

Everyone else: You've got to be shitting me, you're seriously going to drink olive oil?

Jesse: Man, that stuff is rocket fuel, put me at the front of the rope and I'll be dragging all of you up the mountain.

Needless to say, there was much discussion for the rest of the trip about Jesse's alpine style. In all seriousness though, he was true to his word and did drink the oil which I took a video of and will post with pictures later.

We left for camp Schurman on Monday at around 10AM after checking in at the ranger station, and made it to camp around 4:30 or so. We set up camp, and started the process of melting snow for 4 people. After doing that for a while and eating some food (pro tip: DON'T make spaghetti in a jet boil), we turned in for the evening.

Tuesday was slated to be a rest day, so we mostly sat around and melted snow, played cards, and lamented the fact that we had to wait around so long. We decided to wake up at 11:30PM to get a start by 12AM and tried to get some sleep around 7PM. We woke up around 11:30, and Ted came to us with the bad news that his dad would not be attempting the summit. We decided to press on as a team of three, and were off from camp around 12:30AM. Ted led out and set a great pace that had us on the summit at 5:00AM. Sunrise was at 5:21, so we stuck around and watched the sun come up from the top before heading back down. The decent was a bit on the steep and icy side, so the upper portion took us a bit(skis would have been nice) and we were down to camp at 8:30AM. We packed up, and were ready to go back down the trail.

The trip down was pretty uneventful except for the glissade down the interglacier. It was the longest and funnest glissade I have ever done. I think it must have been a good 1500 vertical feet or so and lasted for a couple of minutes. Made it back to the cars around 1:30PM, and took off for home.

This was a fantastic trip, and an objective I have had for quite some time. The only way it could have been better is if all of us had summited. Thanks to Ted and Jesse for leading the ascent and descent from Schurman respectively. Also, a big thanks to Jesse for being super hilarious the whole trip and making it so much more fun. I think our site was the only one at Schurman where there was constant laughter.