Mount Rainier, Disappointment Cleaver, 2021

The goal of this trip was to take my wife up Mt. Rainier. She had been asking for over 20 years but I had always said no. Climbing Rainier is not fun, ok, maybe it is just the summit day of climbing Rainier is not fun. But, after she climbed Fuji and Kilimanjaro, I changed my mind. A friend of ours was putting together a large group and I thought this would make it more fun as well. It was a hot early season on Mt. Rainier and the route was deteriorating fast, but conditions were ripe for our group of inexperienced climbers. We lucked out with great weather, warm conditions and amazing safe snow conditions had someone slipped or fallen. Just a few weeks after our climb, the entire DC route was canceled by all the guided groups as no safe way could be found onto the cleaver. We barely made the summit and I do not see my wife ever asking again to climb this mountain.

Our group of 11 climbers before the climb (the pictures below are a joint effort)

Looking down on Little Tahoma

From the top of Disappointment Cleaver at 12,300 feet

Climbing team on the glacier above the cleaver

Emmons Glacier from the cleaver

At Cathedral Rocks. Lights in the distant saddle are at Camp Muir. Adams in distance

Camping at 9,700 feet below Camp Muir

Ladder over a crevasse

Ingraham Flats camp with Little Tahoma

Looking across Ingraham Glacier with Cathedral Rocks, Cadaver Gap and Gibralter Rock

Sunrise......finally

Between Pebble Creek and the Muir Snowfield