St. Helens Evening ascent - a.k.a. Skunked on Rainier by National Park Service

Aaron and I wanted to climb Rainier during the weather inversion in mid-February. Telemetry from NWAC revealed that it was almost balmy up at 10,000', and generally cold down low. We were inspired by a trip report from the climbing rangers practically exhorting all who climb to com and get it while the getting was good. Our plan was for a two-day ascent. This hopefully would work out well, as Christine and I were hosting company the next evening for the swearing in of the new president.

We met up at a very civilized hour and headed down to Rainier. I was super stoked. Since the Muir hut was open, and we were planning on the Gib Ledges route, we were going to head up super light - no ropes, no tents. Unfortunately, we got a major buzzkill from the rangers who informed us that, due to problems with the road being only open one way, they were not going to allow overnight camping up on the hill on a weekday (we were there on Monday morning). I was pretty pissed, especially after the ravings of the ranger blog saying how dope climbing conditions were at the moment.

So.... it was about 10am and we were all loaded up with no place to go. On top of that, I didn't really have time for us to modify our plans for anything longer due to social engagements. I casually suggested we could go down to St. Helens and do the walk-up, returning home way late in the evening. This way we could enjoy the weather inversion and at least get out in the hills. We didn't have any technical climbing equipment with us for other stuff in the area. Also, it didn't seem like it was that far south.....

Several hours and a couple of hundred miles later, we roll up towards St. Helens. The drive was f***ing long. On the road up to the Sno-Park, we saw an SUV precariously perched down a gully after sliding off the road (fortunately it was unoccupied!).

By the time we got all ready to go it was damn near 4pm. Tons of skiers passed us on their way out. We even got puzzled inquiries from other climbers/hikers. "You guys know it's gonna be dark soon, right? There's still a couple of thousand feet elevation." Thanks, folks! We know what we're doing, even if it seems silly.

We made pretty quick work of the approach. Snowshoes weren't necessary up higher; the snow was unbelievably firm! Darkness set in pretty quickly. We snapped a couple of pictures before losing the sun, however. Aaron is posing with a cool view of Adams in the background.

Once the sun went down, it was kinda hard to stay motivated to keep going. The way up was obvious, thank goodness. Aaron only brought one liter of water and was starting to feel the effects of dehydration once we neared the summit. He encouraged me to press on for the final couple of hundred feet. Fortunately, there wasn't a huge cornice overhanging the edge of the crater rim. I was hoping there might be some glow down in the caldera visible in the dark night, but no dice. The stars were out, however, and it was quite beautiful in its own way.

Going down went smoothly. It took a little concentration to make sure we got back to where we cached the snowshoes. Here is a picture of what the last 4 hours of the hike/climb looked like.

After enjoying my second big fast food meal of the day, we drove on back to Seattle late into the night. INXS helped power the drive home, and I was pretty beat. After getting my car at the park-n-ride, I tuned into NPR where there was already early morning coverage of election day on the east coast! 3:30am west coast time = 6:30am east coast time, so I guess that wasn't really a surprise. It was a fun day. Thanks for driving your car all over the state, Aaron!