Failure on the Emmons Glacier
Back in May, Helen and I made a decently ambitious attempt to climb and ski the Emmons Glacier on Mt. Rainier. The Emmons is the largest glacier in the contiguous US, covering nearly four square miles of Mt. Rainier's northeastern flank.
We'd recruited a third skier for our rope team, Nate, and had a spectacular weather window for a two-day attempt.
With the park gate still closed, we decided to bike to the trailhead on a Friday morning. Loaded with skis, overnight gear, and glacier kit, we pedaled slowly uphill to the Glacier Basin trail - 12 miles and 1,800 feet of climbing on the bike to start the day.
Riding into the park felt like entering a cathedral. Morning light streamed through the forest canopy, sunlight dappling the asphalt. The smell of the hemlock trees was bright and vivid. I felt light, despite the loaded bike.
Stashing the bikes at the trailhead, we loaded up our heavy packs. The straps bit into my shoulders as we set off on foot. The morning was warm and windless, with bright sunshine already baking the lower-elevation snow that remained.
The first half of the day was slow going to reach the Inter Glacier. Post-holing on the climbers' trail, an isothermic snowpack, and the overnight packs conspired to make things especially difficult. Once on the glacier, we finally started climbing in earnest. The day's goal: reach Camp Schurman at 9,460 feet in elevation.
By this point, I was drenched in sweat and feeling it. The northern aspects offered no shelter from the mid-May sun, and I had consumed far fewer calories than I needed for the conditions.
By the time we reached the top of the Inter Glacier, I was fully cooked. Head throbbing, stomach churning, full-on heat exhaustion had set in, and I was coming apart trying not to puke. I've never skinned this slowly in my life - I'd be shocked if I was covering 800 feet of climbing per hour. Water and gummy worms couldn't save me; all I could do was bargain with myself to ski down the shitty, refrozen pitch to Camp Schurman.
Slowed down by my full-on implosion, we arrived at camp just after 9 pm, a full 5 hours later than planned. I shivered in my parka while Helen and Nate boiled water and pitched our tent. I'm using "tent" loosely here; it was really a Black Diamond pyramid tarp. These tarps are designed to be dug into the snow, but the best we could manage was piling some refrozen blocks of snow on the edges.
An hour later, we were finally in our sleeping bags and ready to pass out. The tent was drafty but workable, and the 2:30 am alarm was looming. When the alarms went off, we sat up to discuss our prospects.
I still felt like dog shit, weak and dehydrated despite my efforts. Helen's corner of the tent was especially cold, so she hadn't slept. Nate, rightfully annoyed, wasn't in the mood to try and rescue the vibe. We decided to bail, go back to sleep, and ski out in the sunshine.
At a leisurely 8 am, we packed up camp and fucked up one last time - we'd waited too long for the snow to soften, and our ski down the Emmons moraine was total mush. Mashed potato snow, baked twice in the sun, grabbed at our ski bases the whole way. When we ran out of snow, we slogged it out in our boots over the lava rock.
Back at the bikes, we had our only redeeming experience - a long, carless descent back to the park gate. Candidly, it was hard to enjoy. Everything had lined up, but I just didn't have the fitness to make it work. To add insult to injury, a group of friends summited and skied the same line on the same day. They said it was incredible and even saw the northern lights.
It sucks to shoot and miss on what felt like such an obvious target, but a big failure in the mountains is just a reminder that nothing is a given. I'll be back next year, even if I have to climb mountaineering-style to get another shot.