Climbing & Boarding Mt Rainier's Camp Muir

Camp Muir is the high camp for summiting Mt. Rainier via the Disappointment Cleaver (most popular) route, and a popular day hike with those in the area looking to get some altitude/snow experience or just a real good workout. I first did it with my mom back in 2006 and then Matt & I did it with Lance in 2010 as training before summiting via the Emmons route later that summer. Matt and I are prepping for some high altitude in Ecuador this fall, and also just wanted to take advantage of the awesome weather forecast so late in October. There was a huge storm the last weekend in September, and then our lovely government promptly shut down, leaving Mt Rainier National Park off-bounds (and the snow untouched). Luckily for us, it opened again this Thursday and when Matt talked to the ranger on Friday he said conditions were looking great, and he didn't think anyone had been up to Muir since it re-opened.

When we arrived Saturday morning, there were plenty of people in the parking lot, but we were happy to know we would not need to be the ones route-finding. We grabbed our gear, strapped on the snowboards, and off we went. Despite packing all our freezing-weather mountain gear, I had stripped down to a tank top before we even left the parking lot. The hike up was beautiful, long (as always) and enjoyable. It's ~4.5 miles and ~4500 ft of elevation gain, with Camp Muir sitting right around 10,000ft. We made it to camp in just under four hours, and spent almost an hour enjoying the views, eating, and talking to fellow climbers. 

All the cool kids had skis and skins, but there were a few other boarders out. I had never used my board with my mountaineering boots before and while it certainly wasn't ideal, it was better than carrying an extra set of boots up the mountain, and the slope was never too steep so it worked out fine. The snow conditions were awesome, only a couple people had made tracks ahead of us, and we were able to board to within a 5 minute walk to the parking lot, with just two small sections where we had to unstrap to get over some early season rocks. Less than an hour down, and we were on our way home. 

Hiking Rachel Lake & Summerland (Almost eaten by bears)

Last weekend Matt & I got outta town and took advantage of the awesome fall weather and colors to do a little hike out to Rachel Lake (exit 62 on the I-90 corridor). The fall colors were great, the sun was out, the lake and mountains were beautiful, and I'm not sure how this one had never made it onto our list before.

About a month back now, we went on a lil hike with Lance, Val, Cat & David. We'd actually planned a backpacking weekend, but life got the better of all of us, and we turned it into a day hike. We did the Wonderland trail up to Summerland at Mt. Rainier. I love love Mt. Rainier and it was fun to see it from a different viewpoint than we had before. Its over on the White River side of the mountain, but not quite the same trailhead as we used for our 2010 summit. And Val took all these pics. Of course. Cuz she's awesome.

Everything was lovely, and wonderful and we sat down for lunch on some logs, near the high-alpine-fragile-dont-walk-on-me meadow. We were goofing off, taking pictures, drinking our Rainier (it was called for no?) when Val started saying 'guys. guys. hey guys. GUYS!'.  When we eventually took her seriously, we turned to see momma bear and two babies 10-15 feet behind us. We calmly/frantically gathered our belongings and spread about foodstuffs and (calmly) hustled to the fragile meadow of safety. We were quickly joined by a number of other nervous hikers who formed a bear-scaring-circle. Right. Once at a safe distance, we watched the babies frolic and climb trees, and be the cutest things ever right where we had been dining moments before. And then an angry, oblivious, old man walked out of the woods and yelled at all of us to 'get back on the trail!' as if 15 of us might be randomly huddled in the meadow for no good reason.

The bear experience lent some excitement to the day, we ate our foods, enjoyed the always-spectacular views of Mt. Rainier, and made our way down.