Ericksons Climb: “This is it! You’re doing it!” ~Win Whittaker

(WARNING! This IS long!)
ASHFORD All our sweat, tears, money, time, smiles, and training have come down to this last weekend! On Wednesday July 21st we headed down to Ashford, WA for the Climb for Clean Air’s climb #2. The previous week’s climbers were successful with 12 of 18 climbers summiting. Now its our turn to give it a shot. Wednesday morning, Gavin and I gathered all our gear and stuff up and tossed it the car and headed over to Silverdale to meet his dad. We decided to take the trailer out to Ashford so that we could save a little money and cook our own food. We arrived to Ashford in enough time to be able to quickly set up the trailer then

head over to Basecamp at RMI. We rented the rest of our needed gear and met up with the rest of CFCA climbers. After quick introductions and meeting our guides we watched a slideshow of what the weekend was going to entail. Our two guide leaders were Win Whittaker and Mike Haugen. They split the group into two and Team Erickson was in Win’s group. The guides answer our many questions regarding our gear and how to get it all in the backpack. That night we all met up at the Copper Creek in for dinner and the best blackberry pie then off to bed it was for us. Amazingly enough we were in bed and asleep by 9:30pm I think that might be a record for me!
CLIMB SCHOOL Thursday morning we at Basecamp at 8:15am ready for climb school. We all crammed into the shuttle and headed up to Paradise. We hiked for about 30 minutes before finding a spot that had some great snow. First we practiced walking downhill without falling. I think Win was surprised at how well we were all doing. And that is how it stayed for pretty much the rest of the

afternoon. Thanks to all the volunteers at the ALA we had already done so much of this stuff. We learned how to self arrest and get into the arrest stance. If someone on your ropes says their falling its up to the rest of the group to help save them. So you throw yourself into the ground and dig your feet and ice axe in to get a good grip. Then we got to

practice self arrest and what better way to do it than by actually “falling.” We climbed to the top of a slope and slide down in all sorts of different positions and had to stop ourselves with self arrest. At one point Win took away our ice axes and we had to stop without them. That was a ton of fun! Lastly we had to learn the ropes. So the rest of the afternoon was spent hiking around the mountain finding different circumstances to practice.

After climb school was over we headed “home” to our trailer to make some dinner then head back to Basecamp for a “fireside” chat without the fire. Lou Whittaker sat down with us all and told some great climbing stories. Really only one that was a bit scary, otherwise, he was very inspirational. Then it was back to the trailer to pack for the actual climb and head to bed.
MUIR Friday morning we were up and ready to go at Basecamp at 8:15am. This is it, we’re doing it now! Gavin had gotten car sick on the way up to climb school so him and Richard drove the truck but I rode in the shuttle to hang out with

Heather. After some quick regrouping we put on the pack and were on our way. We took it slow to Camp Muir so we didn’t waste all our energy getting there. About every hour to hour and fifteen minutes we stopped and took a break. The day was gorgeous! With the snow melting the view was so much different than the last time we went to Muir. We saw waterfalls and beautiful wildflowers. With each break I was feeling pretty good. I have finally learned my layers and how to keep cool so despite the blazing sun I didn’t feel overheated. Upon arrival to Camp Muir we got straight to

work of unpacking our stuff and picking a bunk to sleep in. The hut at Camp Muir is for RMI only and was airlifted into its place by Lou Whittaker in the 1970s. Its a bit wobbly looking but pretty nice for being at 10,000 feet. Richard picked the bottom bunk to stay cooler and Gavin and I picked the top level to stay warmer. It’s pretty tight in there once you pile in 18 people and all their gear. Backpacks and sharps (ice axes, trekking poles, and crampons) stayed outside. The goal at Camp Muir was to be as lazy as possible to save the energy that was going to be needed in just a few hours. Gavin had a bit of a headache from the elevation, I didn’t even notice that I was at 10,200 feet. After a bit of pep talk and making some dinner we were off to “sleep” by 6:30pm. Win warned us that some of us might not be able to sleep but all our bodies needed is to rest. So to do nothing but lay there till they came and woke us up, which could be anywhere from 11:30pm to 3:00am depending on weather. I believe I fell asleep for about 3 hours of that time and woke up last at 10:45pm. I went outside to use the facilities and boy was it beautiful and warm! The moon was about full and there weren’t any

clouds in the sky. I had a feeling they would be in at 11:30 to wake us up so I didn’t even try to fall back asleep I spent the rest of the time “resting.” Sure enough they came in right at 11:30pm and told us we had one hour to eat breakfast, pack our stuff up and get our gear on. Apparently Gavin hadn’t slept a all but I tried reminding him that he didn’t need sleep just rest. We ate our oatmeal, packed our packs and put on our gear. On in this order; upper body- baselayer, avalanche receiver, fleece layer: lower body- baselayer, climbing pants, harness: helmet with the head lamp and for the feet, liner sock, sock, plastic boot and then the crampons. In the pack we had our parkas, food, water, and rain gear. After finishing getting ready I was stoked! I felt great and was planning on heading to the top of Mt. Rainier, mentally I was in the game!
SUMMIT ATTEMPT Team Erickson (Gavin, Richard, and I) were with the guide

Eric. He roped us up in the following order: Eric, Richard, me, then Gavin on the end and we were off. So we headed off into the snow field. It was amazing how many headlamps were ahead of us. You could see a whole string of people winding there way through the Cathedral Gap. I wish I could have gotten a picture to share how cool that site was. According to the NPS there were 147 climbers at Camp Muir that night. It was light enough from the moon that you could see the shape of the mountain and the glaciers. First we crossed the Cowlitz Glacier toward the

sandbox. The sandbox is the first rocky, dirt area we had to zigzag up. It’s a bit awkward walking in the dirt and rocks with your crampons on. Plus you can’t get a good grip so it seems as though you take one step forward then slide two steps back. After making our way through the sandbox by butt and thigh muscles were a bit tired and I started getting a little queasy so I tried doing more pressure breathes. There were so many people on the trail and in our way that Eric decided to have us “off trail” it for the last 200 feet to First Break. That little bit took a little out of me as well. But there were were finally at first break at 11,000 feet. With each break we are told to get the pack off, parkas on, grab food and water, and sit! You must eat with each break or you’ll just set yourself back. So with my queasy stomach I forced down some candy and water. I wasn’t feeling super great because of my stomach but Eric said that as long as I felt okay I could keep going, I was probably a little nauseous from the elevation. After the 15 minute break we were off again. This next section is crossing the Ingraham Glacier and working our way up Disappointment Cleaver. The first part was not too bad. We did have to step over a small crevasse, thankfully I couldn’t see, it was about about a foot wide, no big deal. Crossing the Ingraham Glacier was a

bit interesting in parts, the trail is pretty narrow in which is seems you are walking heel to toe with the wall of snow pretty tight against your left shoulder with the ice axe and pretty open and steep on the right side. But again if you don’t think about it too much it wasn’t too bad. Then we arrived at the Cleaver. Eric stopped us at a safe spot and reroped us. When going up through rocks you want to be short roped to keep each other closer and so to not knock rocks down. With this configuration he had me next to him with Richard then Gavin behind me. I don’t

even know how to begin to explain the Cleaver. We are zigzagging up this rock formation that is sticking out the side of Mt. Rainier.

Remember that we have these awful plastic boots and crampons on. We are walking on loose rocks and boulders in the dark. It feels as though it is straight down on one side. There isn’t really anything to put your ice axe into for an anchor and you can’t really grab on anything with your hands because you’re holding on to the ice axe. I was trying really hard to not think about how unsafe this felt until we got a flat slanted rock that I had to pass over that had ice on it. I couldn’t figure out where to put my foot so that I had a bit of a grip and wouldn’t slip and fall. At this point I got really nervous and my stomach ache I already had was getting worse do to the nerves. At one point I think Eric was a bit concerned I might loose my lunch. But I never did I just kept focusing on the next step in front of me. Because of the many people on the mountain that day we kept getting stuck in traffic jams of other climbers that were going slower than us. At one point we were standing there waiting for some climbers to step off to the side so we could pass when we suddenly see and hear a huge boulder tumbling. Off to my right there goes the huge rock. All of the sudden everyone starts yelling “ROCK!!!” Then I hear one of our guides below us yell, “Mike, run this way!” Thankfully the rock didn’t hit anybody but it came within about a foot from Mike. Somehow that man didn’t even seem phased by the rock, it is his second time climbing Rainier. I, however, was completely freaked out. My stomach was hurting, my nerves were getting to the end of me and I just wanted off the mountain. We had to continue uphill and get to the next rest stop at the top of the cleaver. Thankfully I had the best guide ever who was completely confident in me and patient with us. Once we passed all the people in our way we continued on at 100% not slowing down because we were tired. Once we got to the top of the Cleaver though I decided that I was no longer was having any fun (which was my rule #2 second to safety). My stomach hurt, I was tired and just plain freaked out. Now however that meant I had to go back down the Cleaver in the dark because it was only 4am. So I followed the routine to the best of my ability: pack off, parka on, grab some food and water, and sit. I could not eat or drink for anything, my second indication that it was time for me to go down. I really wasn’t disappointment with my decision at the time I knew that was what needed to be done. I was no longer an asset on the rope and I wanted to have enough energy to make it down safely.

We ended up staying at this rest stop for a half an hour waiting for the rest of the groups to catch up. Gavin wasn’t sure if he had enough left in his tank to get him up that mountain and back down safely and Richard was in the same boat as me and Gavin so as a team we decided the three of us would go down. Another lady wanted to turn around as well so we hooked her up to our rope. Since we now had 5 people on our rope including the guide, Eric decided it would be safer to take a little different route back down. So we went down the spine of the Cleaver. It’s still loose rocks and boulders but if you slipped it wouldn’t be as straight down. They don’t take this route up because its longer. Since we weren’t on a time crunch we took our time going down and really enjoyed the scenery. Unfortunately our cameras didn’t like either the altitude or the temperature so we didn’t get very many pictures. However, we did get an awesome one of the sunrise! Coming down the spine of the cleaver right at that time was worth

everything we had been doing for the last 7 months! It was the most spectacular view that I think I have ever seen! Going down being short roped was interesting. You’re suppose to keep the rope at just the right tension, not too loose to get tangled up on the person in front of you and not too tight that you pull the person behind you. There was lots of tugging and tripping that happened. I both gave and received it. Its hard not to get frustrated with each other over the rope. But its hard when you’re afraid you’re going to get pulled over the boulder you’re trying to climb down or when the rope gets caught under your crampon. But overall I would say after a few quarrels we did pretty well as a team! Once we got off the

spine of the cleaver and back to the main trail we had to do a lot of stopping and pulling over to let the uphill climbers go by which allowed for more picture taking. As we crossed the Ingraham Glacier on the way back down, Eric made us walk as quickly and precisely as possible. He said that is the one point in which he has no control as a guide. There are two areas in which an ice or rock fall could happen without any warning so just to pass under it as quickly as possible. We stopped for a quick break at “First Break” to grab a snack and water then were on our way. As we were passing by the tents at High Camp another climber came over and asked Eric if he would come check out his dad. The four of us sat there while Eric ran over to the tents. Apparently the man was suffering from mountain sickness and wasn’t doing well at all. Eric suggested that they pack up as quickly as possible and head down to the ranger hut at Camp Muir even if it took them 2 hours. Which just shows the mountain is in control.The last bit back to Camp Muir seemed to take forever as my knees were starting to get sore from all the downhill climbing. Because you can see Muir from when you pass through the Cathedral Gap it seems like you will never reach it!
After arriving to Muir we sat, relaxed and told our stories to the other two climbers that had turned around before we did. We packed up our stuff and hung around there till the summiters (12 of 18) arrived. After they packed up their stuff we headed back down to Paradise as a group. To save our knees we got to glissade

down the Muir snowfield on garbage bags. That was a ton of fun and made the trip down quick! When we came upon Pebble Creek we ran into my mom and our friend Jim! They were waiting for us to arrive. They hike the last hour down the mountain with us. At Paradise a couple of the ALA volunteer guides greeted us with watermelon, Oreos, beer, and pop! What a treat! We checked into our rooms, cleaned up, and met the rest of the climbers for a celebration dinner followed by a award ceremony. We were in bed and snoozing by 8:30 pm!
THIS IS IT! WE DID IT!!