Rainier

What a trip!  Wasn't too excited about the chances of a summit as I got on the plane to Seattle.  A late winter had been dumping snow on the mountain and hardly anyone was able to get to the summit.  But summer arrived quickly, and the two days we spent slowly making our way up the lower parts of the mountain allowed the upper route to improve enough for a successful summit.  Ended up doing the Ingraham Direct route, as the Disappointment Cleaver route was a mess of snow and ice.  It was still cold and windy, but it could have been much worse.

Not a whole lot of pictures, it was cold enough that I didn't want to take off my gloves.  Here's what I got.

Finally getting above the clouds on the slog up to Camp Muir.  My pack was already approaching 60 pounds before I volunteered to carry the team rope.  Day one was a five mile hike that gained 5,000 feet:

Arriving at Camp Muir, right at 10,000 feet:

Morning coffee on day two.  That's Mt. Adams off in the distance:

From my tent at Muir you could see the next part of the route:

My tent is the blue one.  Had it to myself as my partner bailed at the last minute due to a positive COVID test:

Another Muir shot.  Adams to the left and Mt. St. Helens to the right:

Then it was up to Ingraham Flats for the next camp.  This was the view from my tent.  That's Little Tahoma peak:

On summit day we set off at 3AM.  Three person rope team, and no pics as I was busy doing other stuff and it was fucking cold and windy.  Rainier is a volcano, and you keep climbing until you get to the bowl.  Our route got us there, then it was an easy unroped walk across the bowl to the summit.  Here are some peeps crossing that bowl:

It was actually nice in the bowl as the wind was blocked.  The summit was awful though and I had trouble standing the wind was so strong.  Spent less than five minutes there.

Quick summit selfie.  I applied sunscreen every eight seconds and still got burnt.

From the summit it was back down to our camp at Ingraham Flats.  Left at 3AM, got back around noon.  Got up early the next morning for a cup of joe before heading all the way back down to the van:

Here's our camp at the Flats.  You can see a lot of our route to the summit here:

Katie met our group as we got back to the finish with a case of Rainier beer.

We then toured the Olympic peninsula before heading up to I-90 and coming back east through Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Missoula, then down to Alpine, WY, and then home.  Lots of breweries.