In January of this year, I had been made an offer to join a wealth management practice in the bay area and assumed I would be moving to Oakland around May or June.  As such, I decided I had to have another go at Rainier before I officially had been away so long that Seattle didn’t feel like home anymore.

I signed up for the Peaks of Life All Women’s climb of Rainier via the Emmons route, July 21-22, 2018.

I spent the first 3 months of this year traveling around West Africa and I certainly didn’t get much exercise.  I started training for this climb in April, but more seriously starting in June – getting in at least one or two 3-4000 feet of gain hikes each week as well as cross-training at the gym.  The opportunity in Northern California fell through, and I was struggling to decide what to do next with my career.  As such, training was hard and the stress of looking for work made me question whether I had the physical and mental stamina to go through with the climb, and whether I was going to be able to fundraise enough $$ to hit my goal (especially since things were financially tough not working.)

All this stress began to take its toll, but I pressed on and managed to get close to reaching my target fundraising goal and felt relatively and adequately physically prepared for the climb.

What about mentally?  For me, time spent in the mountains can be very contemplative and almost meditative.  But it can also be additionally difficult to concentrate and focus when there are lots of emotional obstacles in life to contend with at the same time.

It was during this difficult time of transition in my life that the week of the climb began to approach, and along with my trepidation about being ready or not came the anxiety fed by memories of three previously unsuccessful summit attempts.

If that weren’t enough, the climbing rangers put out reports the week of the 17^th of July that suggested the route was getting broken up, that navigation had become far more difficult, that running belays might be necessary through a re-route that would make the journey through the Emmons much steeper and more of an intermediate climb for teams.  I distinctly remember feeling quite alarmed when I read that the route presented the potential for “team-eating snow bridge collapse”.

That didn’t sound good.

The 3 climbers and the 2 leads from Peaks of Life – Forrest Barker (Brooke was unfortunately, taken sick) and Eve Jakubowski gathered over dinner at the Himalayan restaurant on the Thursday before the climb to discuss options.  Personally, I wanted to delay the climb by a day and do the DC route on Sunday through Monday when we might have a shot of getting a walk-up permit.  Kara was able to follow through with that plan, but Christina couldn’t take the day off.

Forrest assured us that the weather forecast looked really good and that simply put, if we still wanted to do the Emmons together, he felt confident that he would be able to guide us through it and set protection along the way where necessary.  You could see the gleam in his eye that always lights up at the thought of guiding newbies through somewhat hazardous, challenging terrain.  He thrives on that and I knew he wanted us to go for the Emmons.  Eve was on board too – and the plan would allow all 3 of us to see our fundraising goal through to its potential fruition.

We all agreed we would stick to the original plan.

That night I had horrible dreams about crevasses, climbing on steep snow and falling into a dark void.  I felt very uneasy about the weekend, but I set about packing my gear in any case – I had volunteered to drive down Friday afternoon and obtain our climbing permit before 5pm so that we could hit the trail at sun up.

That Friday I hit the most horrendous traffic that Google Maps failed to anticipate and I missed the permit office being open by over an hour.  I felt additionally despondent when I realized that I had forgotten my annual park pass and was charged $30 to get into the park, and I was informed that no camp spots were open.

Things turned around when a couple at the very first campground I drove past were kind enough to let me pitch my tent on their site which had plenty of room.  I was so grateful, and managed to sort out my gear and re-pack it, since in order to leave the house by 2 I had literally thrown a bunch of gear in my back seat and then realized all the stuff I’d forgotten as I drove south (Diamox, an extra Nalgene, AAA batteries, caffeine gel shots – shout out to Eve who was kind enough to grab those items for me and bring them down Saturday!)

The campsite was by a lovely stream and I settled happily in my sleeping bag after enjoying a cold beer and managed to get one of the earliest nights before a climb ever.

I broke camp early and met with the rest of the team at the Ranger Station at 7am the next morning to pick up our walk-up permits.  I had freshly baked banana bread for each member of the team as we stood in line and Forrest made coffee.  We managed to secure our permits and were given the harsh warning about the state of the route before we headed on up to the trailhead parking lot.

We finally headed on out up the trail around 9am.  As usual, my main concern was being a slower hiker than everyone else.  No matter what I do in terms of training, I usually find myself to have a slower pace than most which makes me extremely anxious doing group climbs such as this one.  Whenever the group made a stop, I would press on because I knew they would catch up sooner or later and I didn’t want to hold everyone up.

Despite the weight of my pack, I felt that I was progressing along the trail much better than I had almost 11 months ago.  The extra time and energy I’d put into training and gaining elevation was paying off – even if I was still slower than everyone else on the team.

By the time we hit the interglacier, I was hitting my stride and only suffering from the sweltering heat of the day.  We put on crampons and headed up in a much more direct route than we’d taken a year ago – luckily there was more of a boot made staircase this time around, which makes steep ascents on snow much smoother.

Steamboat Prow crept closer, the last 30 minutes or so of that long steep trudge was a challenge, and I was very thankful to finally sit and take a break and eat some food.  We were making good progress time-wise, we were just now going to need to rope up for the final hour’s glacier crossing up to camp.

The crevasses were wide and open and Eve (with whom I was on a two-person rope team) applied her climbing experience to route finding our way up, over and around the gaping holes in the snow.  By the end of this climb, I was getting used to stepping over these wide cracks that led to deep dark blue ice of unknown depth.

We arrived into camp six hours after starting out.  That was an entire 2 hours faster than it had taken us the previous year and I was feeling good about it.  Even more lucky – we managed to secure two tent sites from folks who were just leaving – meaning the amount of snow shoveling and leveling out the ground for our tents was minimal.

After setting up our base camp, we set about melting snow for water and dinner.  That was when our first disaster struck – we ran out of camping gas.  One of the canisters brought up was thought to be full but later we determined it to be near empty.  We were in trouble – and Forrest thankfully traded some gear for another used canister from a bunch of climbers heading out.  In any case, we were going to be limited in how much snow we could melt for the summit push, and to make matters worse – Forrest had forgotten his water bottle and ended up getting quite dehydrated in the process.

I had my 3 liters which was recommended for the summit, but by the time I drank some that night and with “breakfast” – I only carried two bottles for the summit.  We all became quite dehydrated during the following day – which turned into an epic, almost 22-hour day of physical effort.

After dinner, where I had very little appetite, I took a hit on my vape pen to try and calm my nerves and relax myself enough that I might catch an hour or so of sleep before we had to get up again.   I was having a lot of anxiety – especially knowing that we were going to be getting up at 9pm to leave by 10p.  This was it.  The big moment.  A large part of me knew the pain that I was walking into and I wanted to pull the plug and just stay in camp.

I buried those feelings and tried to settle in Forrest’s circus-like tent for what amounted to about 90 minutes of sleep.

All too soon the alarm was sounding, and adrenaline took over.  I packed my gel shots loaded with caffeine that I knew I’d need (thank you Eve!) warm layers including my summit jacket that only gets used on climbs like this.  Gaiters, crampons, ice axe, helmet and headlight on.

Ok…deep breath…here we go.

The next few hours were kind of a blur.  We were keeping a quite brisk pace up solid snow that had a steep incline to it such that you often had to duck or French step with the points of your crampons to ascend.  We would stop every 90 minutes or so to drink fluid and take in snacks.  Christina would take a power nap.  I would just keep the thought patterns in my head spinning in a positive direction as best I could.  I felt strong, but the mental fears of needing to turn around perhaps, again, kept creeping into my consciousness.

We deliberately slowed our pace when we realized we would top out before sunrise if we kept going the way we were.  The trail edged up, relentlessly.  I was breathing hard, wondering just how much longer this steep gradient was going to last.

That’s when Forrest announced that things were “about to get steep” as we hit the section of the trail that was the ranger re-route.  “What?! Steeper than it’s already been?” It involved a far left traverse followed by a far right traverse to reconnect with where the original trail goes to the summit more directly.

This section was so steep it really hurt one’s ankles.  I was so glad it was still dark because if I shone my headlamp down mountain, I could see just how steep the run out under us really was and I tried to suppress the thought that a single misstep could have me hurling down that icy slope, yanking Eve off of it with me.

No, don’t think about it.  Just one foot in front of the other.

It was so cold that I put my summit jacket on and found that I could still climb with it on and not get too warm.  The wind was pretty calm and Eve said this was the best weather she’d ever experienced on Rainier.  It certainly was the best I’d experienced!

These moments are both the best and worst of alpine climbing.  You are so totally alone out there on a rope with the next person 30 feet or so in front of you just putting one foot in front of the other.   All you can hear is the sound of your own breath, and the crunch, crunch, crunch, of your crampons and ice axe hitting the snow.  And then there are your thoughts: nagging at you.  Willing you to quit.  Asking questions like “what if someone on my team gets AMS?  They didn’t take any Diamox like you did.  Both of them haven’t been above 12,000 feet before! What if one of us bonks out?  Will we all have to turn around?” – and fear sets in which you have to actively ignore and go back to your breath and each step.

Just keep climbing.  Just keep breathing.

Every time we got to a section of the re-route that a stumble/fall could produce a team pulled off the mountain scenario, Forrest would place a picket and a running belay as we moved through.  One section was quite a vertical climb of snow with steps kicked in nicely.  This sort of turned a corner and it felt like we were finally within an hour or so of the summit.

I started to get excited.  The sky was glowing amber as the sun rose and there is that wonderful and albeit surreal visual of the stream of people with headlamps in front of you getting ever lighter with each passing minute – and it is just so beautiful it takes one’s breath away.  I had a feeling that we were going to make it!

The final push to the summit presented a challenge to me that I could not have imagined.  Penitentes.  These are extremely sharp snow formations that stick up like thousands of ice picks and form in the same way as sun cups, from rapid thawing and re-freezing.  That last section required us to walk on top of these Penitentes and it was by far, the toughest physical and mental challenge of the ascent so far.  Each step, your body weight was only distributed through about 10% of your foot as you had to balance precariously with your crampons, all the while trying not to fall over because these things were sharp and painful.

I cursed those penitentes of death under my breath (and out loud) the whole rest of the way which seemed like the longest hour of my life.  We finally got to a rocky scree slope that Forrest told me lead all the way to the summit.   This was where we could remove our crampons and head up without packs.

What he and none of us realized was that the rocky scree led to even more penitentes!  And this time I didn’t have crampons on that helped grip each step as I precariously balanced on each one.  I was falling, stumbling every which way and my feet were being pummeled.  I have morton’s neuroma in both feet and this enlarged nerve was flaring up from the pressure of these nasty ice formations.  Oh, how I hated them!

Then the summit of Columbia crest was in sight!  The air was thin, my heart was beating out of my chest.  I was the last one to clamber up and when I finally stood on the summit, I became overwhelmed with emotion.

Disbelief, pride, exhaustion, accomplishment, a sense of “Finally!  I have made it!” 8 years after my first attempt – I was finally atop Rainier.

Most of all – I had this overwhelming relief that I would never have to put myself through this again.  Ever!!!!

We took our obligatory summit photos and posed with the Peaks of Life Banner.  I cried tears of joy and took a video expressing my gratitude to Forrest and Eve for their help getting to the top of this monster of a mountain, unfortunately, the playback is almost inaudible due to the wind howling.  All you can see is my facial expression and tears – and that will be enough when I look back on it in years to come.   We were the only ones out on Columbia Crest at that time – 8 and a ½ hours from when we had left camp the night before.  We later learned that the DC route was out and that was why we were lucky enough not to have to share our photo spot with a large group of other climbers.

Thank goodness we had stuck to our original plan of climbing the Emmons!

By 8am we began our descent and I continued my cursing of the Penitentes of death once again and willed for that section to end.

Then it was the long, long, long, slog down the steep snow back to camp – this time, however, we could actually see what we had walked up during that long cold night.  About an hour into our return, we realized that we must have taken a wrong turn and we were on the original route instead of the re-route.  Forrest and Eve decided that if we moved quickly we could minimize any hazards and so that’s what we did – basically eliminating probably over an hour of extra walking since the original route is much more direct.

The downside to this fact was that it put us about 1500 vertical feet below where Forrest had placed his protection in some of the sketchiest parts of the route.  Being the mountain goat that he is, he took off back up the mountain to retrieve his pickets and we thankfully took the opportunity for an extended break.

The sun was so strong at this point and those who haven’t climbed a glaciated mountain cannot fully appreciate just how much glare and UV are constantly reflected back on any of your unsuspecting skin that you haven’t doused in sunscreen- even the insides of your ears and nostrils.  We kept adding snow to our almost empty Nalgene bottles, hoping the sun would melt them enough that we’d have some more to drink on our descent.

Forrest finally caught up and now we were fully plunge stepping through soft snow all the way to camp.  At this point, my quads were totally fried and I was physically quite useless.  Every few minutes I would fall backwards, unable to stay upright, sitting in the snow and cursing my legs.  Eve was so patient with me.  She would pull on the rope telling me that we just “had to get moving!” and each time I would explain that I going as fast as my broken body could carry me.  I was doing my best!

Getting into camp I desperately wanted to just lay horizontally for a while – but I soon found that it was way too hot inside the tent to get any sort of rest.  Taking off my boots and letting my feet breathe provided a measure of relief.  Every single cell in my body did not want to have to walk back to our cars that evening.  I wished we had enough camp fuel and food that we could simply rest and recover that day.

I would recommend to anyone attempting the Emmons to turn the climb into a 3-day trip rather than 2.  The hike out proved to be painful for me.

We used up the very last of the gas to melt about 400mls of water for each person – we vowed to re-hydrate at the river that crosses the trail at the base of the interglacier.

And so, with heavy heart and even heavier feeling legs, we packed up camp and re-roped up to head down the Emmons over to Steamboat Prow.  Everyone got off the rope at this point and it was each man for himself.

This is when my self-pity kicked into high gear as I watched the rest of the team tearing down the face of the interglacier and I struggled to keep pace – my legs and feet were screaming.  I decided to try glissading when the glissade chute seemed to offer a viable and faster alternative to kick stepping – however, I did a terrible job of fixing my crampons to the back of my pack and ended up losing them and a bunch of other gear on my first attempt.

Taking time to reassemble my pack and put on gloves – I re-entered the glissade chute and used my ice axe to brake strongly as I wasn’t a big fan of speed on steep slopes like this one.  I could see everyone else on my team already drinking water at the river – Forrest appeared to be waiting for me to get down the chute.

After refilling my water bottle, waiting for a chlorine tablet to sterilize it first, I decided to keep walking down the trail ahead of everyone because of how slow I was moving.  Forrest had hidden his approach shoes among the rocks and marked the GPS on his phone but was having a hard time locating them.  I didn’t want to hold everyone up (again!) so off I set down the trail…wishing and wishing that I had trail runners to change into as well.

Mountaineering boots are wonderful as torture implements.  Something about the stiffness of their soles and wearing them for 22 hours straight make them so painful that you’re swearing under your breath at them, just waiting for the moment when you can take them off and throw them into your car.  Those last few miles of trail were the hardest for me – especially once we made it back into the easy forest trail that skirts the river.

It seemed to continue for hours and all four of the others passed me.  I told them in no uncertain terms to please not wait for me at the car – to please go ahead and find food and text me the restaurant they were at and I’d meet them there.  I didn’t want anyone waiting for my sorry ass.

The pain on the underside of my forefeet had taken on a whole other level.  They felt so swollen and my nerves so inflamed that each step felt like I was stepping onto the head of a nail.  My pace slowed to a crawl, and by the last 2 miles, tears were rolling down my cheeks and I seriously wondered if I could somehow get rescued?  Every step just shot up my legs and into my eye sockets.  I needed the parking lot to appear.  Now.  And then there would be another turn and another – still no campground or parking lot in sight.

Finally, around 7:30pm I emerged at the trail head.  I was suffering so much though, that I couldn’t initially remember which direction we had parked in.  I knew if I made a mistake and turned right instead of left I might be forced to make hundreds of sharply painful steps in the wrong direction.  I opted for walking straight ahead and then found some people who took pity on my face and pointed me in the right direction – offering their congratulations as I miserably trudged away.

When I finally saw my car, I was alarmed to see that everyone except Christina was still there!  I angrily asked them what the hell were they doing there and why had they waited for me?  I was being super irrational because of the pain.  Forrest claimed they’d only gotten back ten minutes before me and apologized for telling me that we were close to the trailhead when he and Eve had passed me.

Hmpf!

Lies!  Hahahaha.  I got my pack off and feet into my flip flops – and I was alarmed that the pain actually intensified rather than feeling that typical relief as the blood starts to flow back in and around one’s foot.  Hunger and exhaustion were equally tugging at my brain – and I knew that I was also going to be forced to drive another 2 ½ hours home at this point as I’d brought my own car.  We elected on a burger/brewery in Enumclaw and headed over.

I stopped on the way to get gas and realized I also hadn’t stretched and so took the time to work out my hamstrings and quads, calves and hips while waiting for my tank to fill.  I got some strange looks – but I couldn’t care less.   My body was a mess.

On arrival we asked for water, right away – but our waitress was overworked and distracted so I got up and let her know why we were all so dehydrated and she immediately gave me a pitcher to take back to the table.  No matter how much we drank – we didn’t feel it quite satiate our thirst.  The physical push of the day, the lack of fluids and the extreme heat was taking a toll.   Turned out we weren’t all that hungry either and after eating half of our plates, the desire to crash set in with such fervency that we bid good night and raced to get home before falling asleep at the wheel.

That was a pretty tough drive home.  I had the windows open and my music blaring – even still, it took all my strength to keep my eyes open.  Leaving all my gear in my car, I walked into my house and almost directly into the shower where I let the water wash the day away.

We had done it.  We had gotten to the summit of Mt Rainier.  Though I still couldn’t feel my feet, I fell asleep with a big grin on my face.

I have been wanting to climb to the summit of Washington’s highest mountain, Mt. Rainier since I moved to Seattle in December of 2004.  I can remember the first time I saw the mountain, majestic and mocking in her sheer size and prominence – like she was looking down over the city, a clear winner in the contest of who’s bigger and badder.  My first attempt at climbing Mt. Rainier was with International Mountain Guides in 2011.  Like most guided first-time climbs – we went up the DC route but were unfortunately turned around due to high winds and very low temperatures about 500 vertical feet above the top of the cleaver.

That first experience on the mountain was a great lesson in how the mountain has its own weather and how unpredictable she can be.  I can remember thinking to myself that I had never in my life felt that degree of physical cold.  It was terrifying.  I remember desperately needing to drink some water from my Nalgene which had partially frozen despite being in my backpack and weighing my aching thirst with my fear of taking my hand out of my glove to unscrew the cap which was stuck.  I remember the disappointment at having to turn around coupled with the sheer sense of relief that the team wasn’t planning on pressing on into the night while that weather raged because it would have brought untold suffering.

Being so stubborn about attaining goals I set for myself, however, I know that had the guides deemed it safe, I would have continued no matter how much it hurt.  In other words, I was glad that in that instance, it wasn’t my decision to make.

The following summer, a dear friend of mine, Karsten Delap, was in Washington State training for his American Mountain Guides Association certification, and offered to help lead my boyfriend and I up the DC for our second attempt.  Once again, we experienced very shitty weather: not quite as cold, but definitely very high winds.  Additionally, we were faced with what has become another hazard on the ever-popular DC route – especially in the high season for climbing that is July – and that is the human traffic jam that lines the route all the way from Camp Muir to the summit.

In crossing a section after the Cleaver that was notorious for rockfall, I watched as a football sized rock fell from overhead without warning – narrowly missing my friend Karsten.  He looked at me, shaken, urging us to press on through that section much faster.  Later, as we came to what I remember as the endless switchbacks of snow about a 1,000 feet higher than our first attempt had gotten us, we caught up with the crowds of people on the mountain who had now come to a grinding and painfully slow stop-and-go line.  A long queue had formed heading to the summit.

Karsten became agitated, and as the wind picked up, he started cursing as he noticed the number of inexperienced climbers doing stupid shit like sitting near an open crevasse eating snacks unclipped from their team’s rope.  This, combined with the worsening weather and the fact that we were unable to push on at a pace that would result in us getting to the summit with a reasonable safety margin to return before the snow/ice had softened to a dangerous level led him to pull the plug on our ascent.

That being our second attempt, I felt crushed.  As we descended to Muir, we realized the wisdom in Karsten’s decision as the wind had now picked up to the point where you would see these bursts of color flying by as tents below us at Camp Muir were being ripped off the mountain, one by one.  I remember him picking up the pace and managing to secure his yellow Black Diamond tent which had had 3 of its 6 stakes yanked out by the time we got to it.

To add insult to injury, we experienced what so many climbers must face on their descent to the Paradise area and parking lot:  day trippers asking dumb questions/comments when they see you descending in mountaineering gear.

“Wow!  Did you climb all the way to the top?”

“What’s it like up there?”

“Oh…you didn’t make the summit?  Did you get too tired?”

“How long does it take to walk up there?”

“My sister did it last year and said it was super easy.”

You get the idea.  Mostly you just grit your teeth and smile, but it eats away at you as you watch them smiling back in their jeans and toddler on their shoulders laughing because they can’t believe there’s snow up there “in the middle of summer!”

My boyfriend was super miserable after that climb and declared he was done with the mountain and wouldn’t attempt it again.  Conversations with friends about our experience were also not helpful and anytime someone would point out that they had had a successful summit climb on their first attempt, it made it worse.

What people don’t understand is that it takes just as much physical effort to get within a 1000 vertical feet of the summit as it does to summit.  It also takes, by order of magnitude, a hell of a lot more effort to get close to the summit in really bad weather, than it takes to make the summit on a calm, bluebird day.

For several years, I tried to forget about Rainier.

But then she’d always just be there.  Staring at me as I drove across the bridge.  Taunting me.  Reminding me of how I hadn’t succeeded at something.  Somehow, she became a metaphor for lack of accomplishment in my life.

In 2014, I decided to take a course in climbing with the Mountaineers.  I thought it would be a great way to learn the skills I needed to have another go at the mountain by myself with a team of friends I’d make in the class.  What I didn’t realize was that the other 500 students who’d signed up had the same idea…and Rainier climbs got filled, literally, within seconds of them posting to the website.  You’d be lucky to get “Waitlisted number 14”.   That issue, coupled with the fact that I lost my job that May and decided to spend the majority of the summer hiking and climbing in Peru (on 18,000 foot peaks that didn’t count at all toward my Mountaineers climbing badge) meant I didn’t really make the kind of connections I needed to form my own climbing team, nor did I get a chance to go with any of the basic climb leaders that year.

2014 became 2015 and then 2016 – each of those years posed serious career challenges and climbing took a bit of a backseat as I struggled financially.

Last year, however, I became more involved with a non-profit here in Seattle called Peaks of Life.  I’d met the founders – a couple called Brooke and Forrest (I know, it’s the cutest pairing of names for a nature loving couple ever) at a prior Washington Hikers and Climbers event up at Mount Baker – but we didn’t connect until I joined them on one of their “Adventure Series” hikes to Lake Serene in June.  This Adventure Series was designed to raise awareness of their non-profit which seeks to bring groups of mountaineers together to climb local peaks and raise money for uncompensated care at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  So…I could find a group of people who loved to climb AND raise money for charity at the same time?  Seemed like a winning combination to me!

Peaks of Life had a Rainier climb scheduled for the summer of 2017, however it was already full.  I joined them on climbs of Mt. Adams and I also summitted The Brothers independently with a good friend of mine.  I was in great shape from hiking and climbing all summer – and I was finding my joy in it again.  When a member of the All-Women’s team had to turn around near the summit due to AMS – Forrest offered her the chance to have another go via the Emmons route in August – and he was kind enough to offer me the chance to be 3^rd on the rope team.

This would be my 3^rd attempt at Rainier and 5 years since my last attempt.  Plus – this was a new and exciting route.  I didn’t have to climb to Muir – a huge bonus in my mind alone (I’ve hiked to Muir so many times and I really don’t enjoy it.)  I was excited to go with Forrest – he is genuinely a climbing savant and an all-around wondrously talented, funny, and generous human being.

So, one Saturday very late into the climbing season, we ignored the warnings of how broken up the route had gotten (relying on Forrests’ navigation skills to get us through the maze of crevasses) and heartened by a decent weather outlook, the 3 of us set out to Camp Schurman on the Emmons route which starts at White River.

My first recollection of that day was putting on my fully loaded pack and thinking “Hmmm…this is so heavy, I’m not sure I can make it out of the parking lot!”

I managed.  But it was a long, slow, and difficult trudge for me up to camp.  It took us 8 hours, though we were delayed for about an hour while Forrest set off after some rather expensive looking gear that a hapless climber must have lost in a gust of wind.

When we got to camp – we were the only group there!  Forrest told us that during the height of the season, there could be 50 groups heading up the Emmons.  I felt lucky.  It was a gorgeous evening and sunset…with only a very light breeze in our faces as we fired up dinner and good conversation.

The plan was to head out around 2am so we tried to get to sleep as early as we could – around nightfall.

I was anxious, but really vibing off of the positive energy and outlook of my two teammates.  I was finally gonna get my Rainier Summit!!

I woke up around 2am, but not to the sound of my alarm clock.  I woke up to Christine’s face literally on mine, her body rolled on top of me like she was trying to smother me.  I remember saying something like “what the hell is going on?” and she replied with “Look up!”.

I did.  It soon became obvious that a storm had rolled in and brought high winds with it that had torn several holes right through my rainfly which was now flapping helplessly.  The poles keeping the tent up were being bent almost in two, causing the tent to collapse on Christine’s side, hence her having to roll up and on to me, flattened by the bending structure of the tent itself.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  It was a hysterical moment.  I remember how loud the wind was.  I really needed to pee, but I had no idea how I was going to get outside the tent, let alone manage to stand up once I was outside.

We heard Forrest call out to us.  He said something about wanting to come talk to us, but not being able to, and that we would give it another hour or so and see if the wind abated a bit.

It didn’t.

In fact, after managing somehow to pee (with the spray going in every which direction let me tell you) – back in our tent, Christine and I were forced to dig out our goggles because the dust was being blown into the tent with such ferocity that we couldn’t open our eyes. We tried to get more sleep – but being pressed into each other like that was just not amenable to shut eye and we ended up chatting and giggling into the morning hours when it calmed enough to get some sleep.

Unfortunately, it was now too late to attempt the summit as we wouldn’t make it back in time for the glacier to be safe to traverse.

Christine and Forrest had a great attitude about it, and I tried as best I could to bottle my emotion and disappointment as we headed back to the car.  Carrot cake and beer cooled in the river certainly helped…as did my new life-long friends.

Did I mention that climbing forges the best of friendships?  Going through experiences like this with people you dig is priceless.  Knowing Christine and remembering her on me like that in my slashed tent will always make me laugh.  It was a wonderful start to our friendship.

And so…this brings me to 2018 and my decision in January to sign up for the Emmons All-Women’s climb of Mt. Rainier and finally bag this bitch of a mountain once and for all.

Part II will tell that story…