True Tales from Mt. Rainier. By Tom Demerly. I've climbed on Mt. Rainier six times since 1996. Here are the best stories and photos: Now I understand. The first time I climbed Rainier it was with RMI guides Brent Okita and Heather MacDonald. I didn't know they were two of the greatest climbers in the world. A few months later I was watching a documentary about Everest, and they were interviewing Heather.
Click to Enlarge	We started in light rain and mist. Very poor visibility. I was in Washington three days and hadn't seen the mountain once. We climbed up the Muir Snow Field along stone trails lined with yellow wildflowers. Even in the rain it was beautiful. We reached Panorama Point and punched through the top of the clouds, literally stepping above them.
I nearly fell over. The massive, imposing hulk of this titanic mountain speared into a brilliant blue sky clad in immaculate, blinding snow. A white plume rocketed sideways from the summit. We seemed to be levitating on a cushion of dense, thick cloud that stretched to the horizon. The cloud deck was below us, right below us. Like a surreal scene from a fantastic movie we stood on a limitless carpet of white water vapor- standing on top of the clouds. It was as though we had ascended from earth on the way to heaven. At that instant, any question of why climbers climb mountains was answered completely. Entirely. There were no further questions. Now I understood.
I had never seen anything like this and needed to stand still for just a moment to regain my composure. I realized I had been holding my breath for some time. We summited on that climb. Over 30 climbers started to the top, but only six of us made it to the summit. People gave up for reasons ranging from cold to fear. At the top of the Disappointment Cleaver two entire rope teams turned around and descended. It was dark, bleak and God-awful freezing cold. Thirty minutes later the sun came up and there was a majestic sunrise. Ten minutes later it was much warmer and the climbing was excellent.			Click to Enlarge
The day before the climb I had breakfast with a man I met in the Guide Hut in Paradise. He was in his 30s and worked as a software engineer in San Francisco. It was a life long goal of his to climb Rainier. He told me he trained for months on the hills around San Francisco, hiking up and down them with a 25-pound pack. He had long hair and looked thin and fit. Over breakfast he told me how he practiced climbing skills. He said he opened candy bar wrappers in the dark with mitts on.
Click to Enlarge	When we got to Camp Muir I noticed he was no longer with the climbing team. He turned around on the hike up the Muir Snow Field. I don't know why. I never saw him again. After I got back from the climb I sent Heather MacDonald a thank you note and a photo of her next to a crevasse big enough to easily swallow a 747. She wrote me a letter that told me to keep climbing. I still have it today and I still am.
In The Winter: I tried climbing Rainier in the winter as part of a winter mountaineering class. I couldn't believe how hard it was. Compared to climbing during the summer (which was hard enough), this was insane. It took three attempts to get up to Camp Muir over three days. During the summer it took five hours. On one attempt we walked into the loaded gun barrel of a winter storm. God pulled the trigger. Visibility was no more than arms' length most of the time. The rest of the time it was worse. The wind held the rope between climbers out to the side in a big arc, vibrating in the gale. You had to lean into the wind with all your weight. The moment you picked up your foot to take a step you were blown to the ground. You could not see in front of you, you could not see up, you could not always see your feet through the blowing snow. It was like being an astronaut in a hurricane on the moon. The wind was so loud we could no longer communicate. You had to cup your hands over someone's ears and shout.
The fury of the storm defies any description. You must experience it to understand it. No matter how vivid your imagination, it is worse. I guarantee you. When I lost sight of the rope team in front of me and the team behind me I decided people were going to die and I didn't want to be one of them. I unclipped from my rope, pulled out my compass and started walking down. I got about ten steps and found someone still clipped to another rope team and followed them down. Three hours later we were safe back at Paradise. The guides said they were considering burrowing straight down into the snow for shelter as the storm grew worse, but then decided it was so bad our only choice was to descend. How everyone got back without getting separated is a mystery to me, but the guides had the situation under control.			Click to Enlarge
I learned so much on that trip. I learned what to have handy in your pockets, how to keep your goggles from fogging, how to forecast avalanches, how to do crevasse detection and rescue. Most of all I learned how to use a snow shovel and how bad your hands can hurt when they get really cold and won't warm up. I also learned how easy it can be to die in this sport. Every night we were buried under feet of snow in the hut at Camp Muir. To get out of the hut in the morning we had to dig our way to the surface. If you woke up and had to pee, you did it in a bottle or Ziploc bag until we dug out. It took around an hour to get a tunnel to the surface. There were several interesting characters on this trip. One, a great French adventurer named Sylvan Chiax, was particularly animated. He was obviously wealthy, as he seemed to be on a globe trotting string of sensational adventures. He had climbed Mt. Blanc; para glided in Chamonix, booked a trip to climb Mt. Vinson in Antarctica and a host of other exploits. His stories were a delight, all told with a colorful French accent. He loved women, and recounted tales of beautiful women the world over. When someone finally asked him what he did for a living he simply said,
Click to Enlarge	"Oh, I am a businessman, that's all, but I am climbing Mt. Whitney this spring with George Dunn and then Mt. McKinley in Alaska!" Even though he was in his late forties, Sylvan was as strong as a bull with the heart of a lion. Another character was a man named David Bui (pronounced "Bowie", just like the rock star) from Vietnam. He was a small man in stature but not in experience and will. He had escaped Vietnam under duress during the war and been smuggled to the US aboard a ship. Now he was a missile scientist working on a secret anti-ballistic missile system. Every time someone in the hut farted (about every seven minutes) David Bui would laugh out loud. I asked him "Why do you laugh every time someone farts?" He said, "Americans are so open. Vietnamese never do this! Ha, ha ha!"
We never made it to the summit that winter, after a week of trying. We heard an Italian died trying that week, and was never found. Revenge of Bill Gates: I tried to climb Rainier one year with my friends Eric and Karen from New York. These guys are cool. I met them on the Island of Curacao at a triathlon training camp. We didn't make it to the summit that time. It was just too windy. When we turned around above Disappointment Cleaver and headed down I thought, "Good, I'm glad we're turning around, this is insane…"
There was a woman on that climb who was a product manager for Microsoft. She said Bill Gates would occasionally sit in on their development meetings and, in the middle of the meeting, launch into this profane tirade. Some hours after we went to sleep in the RMI hut at Camp Muir we heard whimpering and then wild, terror stricken screaming from the top sleeping shelf. It was Microsoft girl having a nightmare. Eric was sleeping next to her and got her calmed down. Everyone in the hut was awake now. I thought one of the stoves had exploded and her head was on fire or something equally ghastly. After she woke up she said, "Oh my, I'm so sorry, I do that all the time, I should have mentioned it." It completely freaked me out. I didn't sleep the rest of the night.			Click to Enlarge
It's not the size of the man in the fight… The next time I climbed Rainier it was with my climbing partner Rasa Poorman. It was a delightful climb, everything mountaineering should be. Good weather, great climbing group, it was great. Between the last rest break and the summit I was really struggling. I had been training for the Ironman Triathlon and was in good condition but high altitude mountaineering is very hard work. I remember resting between steps thinking, "I hope Rasa is OK, this is so hard, I wonder if she can make it? This is killing me, I'm hanging by a thread…" I looked up and Rasa was already on the summit, waving her arms and yelling. It took all my energy to breath and climb. I had no extra steam for arm waving and shouting. I never doubted Rasa's fitness again. Through the thickest part of the hedge, New York style. A friend I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa with, Jeff Levine from New York, phoned me on a Wednesday and said, "We have arranged a private climb on Mt. Rainier and one of our climbers can't climb so you can come. It wouldn't cost you anything. You have to be here Friday." I hung up the phone and called the airline. Then I left work and packed my climbing gear. Friday afternoon I was pulling gear out of my rented Mustang in the parking lot at Paradise. I spent the night at the Paradise Inn at the base of Mt. Rainier. It is a pretty alpine lodge. Outside magazine voted the Paradise Inn one of the ten most romantic spots in America. I vote it a great place for a David Lynch movie. The restaurant is five stars though. The Camp Muir French toast is something you must have before you die. So, off we go up the mountain. Our team is an interesting collection of Wall Street guys with as much money, if not more, than adventurous spirit. These guys talk dollar figures I'll never see. A Brit, a German, a truly international crowd. Connie Levine has joined us as well. She is married to Jeff and is an advertising/magazine exec. Connie is a great climber, but wary of all the male ego stuff on this climb. Our guide is Phil Ershler. If you read any climbing books you recognize the name. All seven summits- the first time, like in the famous book Seven Summits. So I am in the presence of a bona-fide mountain legend- and I don't say that lightly. Phil Ershler is a great guy. He tells you like it is and is no-bullshit. His voice commands respect. It's strong. His voice and inflection sound like he starts every sentence with that "…as a matter of fact" attitude. This guy has been there, done that. Even more impressive, he's beat cancer and he's still climbing. You want a hero, a role model, an icon? Phil Ershler: Mountain climber. Why this guy isn't more famous I'll never know. If you are lucky, maybe someday you'll get to meet him. He's the king.
Click to Enlarge	We reach our camp about 300 feet below Camp Muir at around 9,800 feet. We're using tents. Brand new, Mountain Hardware tents. This is first class all the way. The tents are divided up and I draw a tent with Phil. Holy shit- me sharing a tent with Phil Ershler! Mr. K2, Mr. Everest! I was pretty stoked, but tried to act matter of fact. I brought an ultra-lightweight 2-pound down sleeping bag with me. On previous trips we used the RMI hut at Camp Muir. Inside the hut it is warm from the climbers combined body heat. Out here on the snow in a two-man tent it is a good bit colder. Add to that the new hole in my Therma-Rest mattress and I was in for a cold night. There was no way I was saying anything about freezing all night though- not within earshot of Phil. I figured if I said anything he'd take me for a wuss. My idea was confirmed after our climb when one of the other climbers asked Phil,
"Do you get tired when you climb Rainier or is it easy for you?" Phil said, "Well, if I did get tired, you know I wouldn't tell you…" Sharing a tent with Phil Ershler was a high point in my climbing career and always will be. The first day up at 9800 feet we did some training in rope travel, self-arrest and all the other basics. I had been through the climbing school at RMI several times, both the basic and the more advanced expedition school. Up here on the glacier, the lesson seemed a little more relevant. On the private climb we were getting on the job training. We learned about crossing crevasses by- crossing crevasses. It was breathtaking and terrifying. During a final phase of rope travel and crevasse movement practice I was on the tail of a four man rope team. The other three climbers had just passed over the top of a five or six foot ridge. I planted my ice axe in the steep side of the ridge and tried to step up. My right foot poked easily into the snow. My leg sunk into the snow, but my buried foot seemed to be just kind of swinging around in open space under the snow. It felt odd. I pushed down with my left foot and the layer of snow and ice covering the crevasse I was standing over let go. I was space walking. My first reaction was being pissed. I was getting left behind by my rope team and now I was dangling from the waist down in this damn crevasse. I looked down and saw the wet, slick blue walls of the crevasse arch away from me, but couldn't see it's bottom. My ass got so tight you couldn't drive a hatpin up it with a sledgehammer. I put one hand around the rope and sunk the pick of my ice axe in with the other and gave a hellatious yank. I pulled myself up and to the top of the ridge. Everyone was looking at me. The guide at the head of my rope team was walking back to see where I went. He was a young guy on the local search and rescue team. He said, "What's going on?" I told him "I fell in a fucking crevasse!" He says "Wow! No way! Let me see" I pointed to the freshly punched through hole in the snow and he just laughed and said, "Wow, that's cool- you've got a crevasse story now". That night at midnight our team started for the summit. On most climbs you take what is called the Disappointment Cleaver route. There are no easy routes on Rainier, but Disappointment Cleaver is the most traveled and the best choice if you are an entry-level mountaineer. Another route, the Ingraham Glacier Direct, is substantially steeper and more difficult. We took the Ingraham Direct. When I saw the route I thought, "Oh, I can't do that!" Phil was already part way up the wall of the Ingraham Glacier though. No turning back. Maybe everybody was intimidated by the route, but if they were, they wouldn't admit it. It kept getting steeper and steeper until I was using my ice axe over my head like an ice climber on a vertical wall. At the top of the Glacier we were on a beautiful ridge. We took a break. From there the climb was pretty straightforward. It got really tough at the top. The wind picked way up and the temperature dropped a lot. The last few hundred feet to the summit were really bad. The wind was so cold it felt abrasive. On the summit I was pulling out my American flag and Phil looked at me and asked, "Did you just put on sun screen?" I said, "No, Why?" Phil pointed at my face and said, "Your whole nose is white." He pinched it and it was hard. My nose was frozen. I pulled a balaclava over my nose and cupped my hand over it to breathe warm air on it. It seemed to work as it started hurting pretty badly, but the tip was still rock hard. I thought, "Oh no, I'm going to look pretty nasty with the tip of my nose missing." It thawed out over the next day, peeled like a bad sunburn and stayed red for a week or two. Once on the summit I usually take a photo or two but this time the weather was so bad we had to get out of there as soon as possible. One of the climbers, the British guy, had just punched through and fallen into a crevasse. Phil and another guide pulled him out. Clearly, we were wearing out our welcome. A lot of people ask me, "What happens if you have to go to the bathroom when you're climbing- you know, like number 2?"
On Rainier you have to poop in a bag and pack it out. To me, this means I attend to my affairs before we leave for the summit, and avoid fiber during the climb. Taking a crap while roped to three other guys while you are on the side of a mountain, then trying to stuff it into a bag and put it in your pack next to your $600 down parka and your bag of candy was not an appealing option. Everybody secretly (or not so secretly) dreads having to take a dump up there. There was no denying it- I had to take a dump. I said to one of the guides, "Hey, got a blue bag?" (The bags you poop in.) He pulls one out of his pack and yells, over the wind, "Hey, we got a blue-bagger here!" I just thought, "Great, not only do I have to take a crap in a baggy in 40 mph winds and sub-zero temperatures with all my climbing gear on, but now I have an audience."			Click to Enlarge
I walked over to a depression in the ice with no privacy whatsoever, undid the leg loops on my climbing harness, sorted through four layers of clothes to find my butt, sunk my ice axe in the snow in front of me and hung onto it while I squatted. I hoped I wouldn't shit all over myself in this wind. My plan was to dump on the ice, then turn the bag inside out and pick the crap up like you do when you walk a dog and pick their poop up off your neighbor's lawn. I tell you, the stuff freeze-dried instantly. I picked it up, asked anyone else if they would care to carry it down (no takers) and double bagged it in a zip lock and shoved it in my pack- carefully keeping the bag away from anything sharp. Try wiping your ass in a 40-mph wind sometime. Not easy. Compared to our climb and the action on the summit, our descent went without incident. I had to come off the mountain, run across the parking lot in Paradise directly to my car, change out of my climbing boots, pose for a quick group photo, then drive like hell to SeaTac airport to make my flight. Six or Seven hours later I was standing back in my bike shop. Non-stop, door to door. It was cool.
Click to Enlarge	"I'm taking up sailing!" On my most recent trip to Rainier in September 2000 I took RMI's Camp Muir Mountaineering Seminar. Rasa Poorman and I were there training for our climb on Aconcagua in January 2001. The Camp Muir Seminar includes instruction on crevasse rescue, avalanche forecasting, weather, etc. We also made a summit attempt.
When we arrived in Washington the weather was beautiful. Our climb to Camp Muir was clear and pleasant. On the way to Camp Muir we saw enormous ice fall avalanches coming off one of the glaciers. We watched six avalanches in less than 20 minutes. Kent, one of the guides, told me the size of the ice blocks coming down in these icefalls was "About the size of a school bus". The avalanches produced a low thundering rumble that could be heard all over the mountain. When we arrived at Camp Muir our head guide, Brent Okita, announced that we would be going for the summit around 4:00 am. He intended to take advantage of the good weather, as the forecast for the remainder of the week was shaky.			Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge	For me this was a big day. The first time I climbed on Rainier was with Brent Okita so this was like a reunion tour for me. Brent is a great guide, perhaps the best I know next Phil Ershler and George Dunn. I owe my first really good experiences in climbing to Brent Okita. Brent is more than just a guide. He is a climbing coach who brings people into the sport of climbing. Our rope team was a "dream team". We had Brent Okita leading the team, Rasa Poorman, a guy who was an ex-Army Ranger, a women who had been a Jumpmaster in the 82nd Airborne Division and myself. We were the strongest rope team on our trip and would lead our group up the mountain. Brent told us we were taking the Ingraham Glacier route through a substantial icefall. He also said the route was in the best condition he had seen for years and that we could expect to be on the summit in six hours, when it often takes nine.
The summit attempt went without a hitch. Our rope team climbed powerfully and efficiently, as though we had been climbing together for years. In a way, because 60% of the people on the rope team were former members of elite Special Forces units or parachute units, we had worked together. Once on top I crossed the crater rim and signed my name and Rasa's name in the summit register. I took in the 360-degree panoramic view of the lower 48 states. It seemed like you could see forever. This was my fourth trip to the top of Rainier but the first time I had walked across the crater to the top of the summit crater rim.
That night, after we got back to Camp Muir from the summit, Brent Okita briefed us on the next day's schedule. Following his briefing one of the climbers asked him to tell us a "war story". I knew Brent was obviously a very accomplished climber, but the story he related to us was the most incredible story of survival in the mountains I have ever heard or read. Seems Brent was on an Everest expedition returning to high camp from a solo trip to the summit. He had run out of oxygen and it was getting dark. He was alone on the highest mountain in the world. He was also lost.			Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge		Brent tried to find the correct gully leading down to his high camp for some time, but became fixated, possibly due to a combination of fatigue and oxygen deprivation, with one gully he felt was correct. He dug through fresh snow looking for the fixed ropes that would lead him down to high camp and safety. He took his headlamp out to discover the batteries were dead. When you look up the word "fuct" in the dictionary this is the definition:
Fuct. (v) To be trapped at 28,000 feet on the highest mountain in the world in the dark with no headlight and no bivouac equipment. See also: "dead". Basically, Brent was fuct. His chances of survival were probably 1 in 4.			Click to Enlarge
Now, I want you to picture this scene: We're all laying on our sleeping shelves in the hut at Camp Muir, it is dark except for the little propane lanterns in the hut, we just summited a 14,000 foot mountain. Here is Brent telling us this story about survival on a mountain twice the size of the one we are on now. Brent's voice is lilting and singsong. He is quiet and gentle in his enunciation. His penchant for understatement only makes the entire story that much more horrifying. And the man telling it is the guy it happened to.
Click to Enlarge		So what happened? With characteristic calm Brent said,"I decided to wait until morning and then go down. I found a little shelf to lean on and I just stood there all night doing isometrics to stay warm". After a night in the open at 28,000 feet the sun came up and Brent found the gully he wanted (about five minutes from where he was) and descended. Brent made it sound like he missed his bus home from work. I pictured being outside right now, in the dark, standing on a steep ice slope facing into space wondering how long it would be before I froze to death, got swept away by an avalanche, fell to my death or was overcome by the altitude.
I always had tremendous respect for Brent as a climber and guide. But there was no doubt this experience changed the way I looked at him. It was as though he now had this aura of invincibility around him. The following day we practiced crevasse rescue on the Ingraham glacier. Basically, you lower a volunteer into the crevasse and practice setting up a pulley system to haul them out. On our first try we lowered a woman into the crevasse as our victim. She owned a chain of coffee shops in Ohio and had a lot of experience in the outdoors but not so much in the mountains.
The guides tied her in and walked her to the edge of a 150-foot deep crevasse then told here to "Get on your hands and knees and we'll drop you in". As she went over the edge she was (understandably) tentative. If you aren't used to trusting a rope with your life it is a scary experience. Add to that being lowered into a yawning, 150 foot frozen chasm and it gets real weird real fast. So she freaked out.			Click to Enlarge
"Hey, uh, I'm ready to come up! Can somebody pull me up!?! I want to get out of here!" She yelled with rising, although still admirably controlled, hysteria. She was hauled back up not unlike a tuna on a Japanese trawler, flailed about briefly as she was untied and pronounced, "I'm taking up sailing!" The next day it rained at 10,000 feet and we descended back to Paradise where it felt so good to take a shower I took two. It Never Gets Old. I've been to Mt. Rainier 6 times now, each time with Rainier Mountaineering. I've done the two day summit climb three times, a Winter Expedition Class, a private climb with RMI guides and the Camp Muir Seminar. I've climbed with other RMI guides (Craig Van Hoy, John Lucia, Adam Angel) all over the world. Why do I climb with these guys and keep going back?
Click to Enlarge	Simple. They are the best. Every time I go to the mountain I learn something. Every time I climb with these guides I learn something. I'm not an experienced high altitude mountaineer. I'm a tourist. I like to climb and learn about climbing. I want someone else to handle the food, permits, and other logistics. I just want to climb and enjoy the sport. I don't have anything to prove with climbing, it is just recreation. That is why I like climbing with RMI. They do a great job and take care of everything. Their programs are far from easy, but they are fun and doable. I never get tired of Rainier. I've gone back two times year for the past six years. There is always something new to see and experience. Always something to learn about the mountain environment. Climbing with these guys never gets old. I see myself going back there for years to come.