April 30, 2009
Lead Guide John Race called in from the the summit of Mt. Rainier at about noon today!The group set out on a 6-day seminar starting last Sunday. After a night down low (near Panorama Point) the group cut loose and headed up to Muir on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were scheduled training days.
After evaluating the weather and snow conditions yesterday Race and fellow guide Eric Remza decided to give the Ingraham Direct a shot. The Ingraham Direct is a great early season route but typically melts out by late May or early June.
So, early this morning the team roped up and crossed the Cowlitz Glacier then passed through the Catherderal Gap still not knowing if the Ingraham Direct was a viable climbing option. It was.
The team went straight up the Ingraham Glacier crested the Ingraham Headwall mid-morning and enjoyed the “nice and warm” climbing conditions all the way to the top. The group reached the summit just before noon today.
It’s 4:00pm now and the team is pulling into Camp Muir for a well deserved rest. They will descend tomorrow and celebrate their summit!
All is well here in the shadows of Mt. Rainier.
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Tye Chapman
Operations Manager
Many of you know that the mid-summer months (July & August) on Mt. Rainier sell out pretty quickly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get outside and climb a mountain as challenging (or more) as Mt. Rainier!
There aren’t many people who get excited about researching insurance so I thought I’d take a minute and explain some Travel Insurance thoughts and options and try to answer a few common questions.
People ask me – “Why go to Bhutan?”
Additionally, treks like the one we do in Bhutan give us an opportunity to share the experience with a spouse, friend, son or daughter who may not have the mountaineering skills required for many more involved trips. Add to all this the fact that a country like Bhutan sees a much smaller number of tourists than many other locations. And talk about exotic, I can’t think of many locals higher on the ‘exotic’ scale than Bhutan. Add it all up and you’ve got the makings for a great adventure (
I drove the team to the Paradise Parking Lot in Mt. Rainier National Park yesterday in very winter like conditions… Not the Spring Easter we were hoping for. Some fresh snow was covering the freshly plowed parking lot as the team loaded the packs and rigged up the sleds… Into the snow they went.