7/31/11 Trek to Camp Muir, the base camp for Mount Rainier

Distance 9.2 miles round trip
Elevation gain 4600 feet
Max Elevation 10,050 feet




Grinning silly on the descent!


Ajay and I headed out at 6 am to Paradise in Rainier National Park.  We met Archana, Reshma, and their friends who are training for Kilimanjaro, Denise and Vanita there.  We headed out at 945 am, after poor Archana dropped her bagel twice.  The second time a loving bug creeped in ruling out the "three second rule".  Poor Archana also sustained a fall on her knee (ouch) early on.
This hike was entirely different and more difficult than any of our training hikes, namely the whole hike was almost straight uphill on snow.  Also, this is the only hike we have had to deal with higher altitudes.
The visibility on this day was quite poor, and only got worse as we headed up the trail.  Ajay and I hiked together, breaking every hour for 5-10 minutes, RMI style (RMI is Rainier Mountaineering Institue, the guide group who we are using for the Rainier summit).  The wind picked up big time by hour three as did the lack of visibility.  At one point I said something to Ajay and he was nowhere to be seen!  He had stopped to tie his shoe and was 30 yards below looking for me.  Once we found each other we also found the RMI group heading to base camp for their summit climb.  Using their foot prints to help track on the snow, we tailed them essentially the rest of the way up.  I have to say, I loved the wind and the crazy visibility, I felt quite adventurous!

Picture I stole from the internet of a clear day at Camp Muir

The last 90 minutes was the hardest, but I really felt great overall, despite the calf and thigh burn.  The visibility improved near Camp Muir and we were rewarded with views of part of the Rainier summit, but very windy conditions at base camp.  Ajay and I made it up in exactly five hours.  We enjoyed hot lentil soup, and then I almost passed out using the disgusting Camp Muir toilet facility.
The way down turned somewhat bittersweet.  We ran into the rest of the team at about 9000 feet.  They had through a combinations of reasons (boot issues, lack of visibility, etc), decided not to continue to base camp.  Resh and Arch also were now worried about the actual summit climb.  This fear was luckily fixed the next day when they both spoke to RMI guides who said they were doing great (I had said this to them as well, but of course it is more meaningful coming from experts).  We did enjoy a team snack on the way down of banana bread from Resh and grilled peaches from Arch, as well as more of Ajay's lentil soup.  Ajay and I then hustled down, enjoying glissading down several shoots.  Total time down was 3 hours.




Me, Reshma, Archana, Vanita and Denise innocently smile before the hike