Pulled into Seattle last night and crashed at Jed's place after being up 39 hours straight, somewhere in there we summitted Mt. Rainier. Jed is an executive for Microsoft and lives in the Sidney Suites, a very swank apartment complex mere walking from downtown, the famous Pikes Market and the Space Needle.

Rainier was an incredible climb. We are so sore now that we can barely walk around. Feel like train hit us. The first day we hiked 5.5 miles up an elevation gain of 5000 feet through the Muir snowfields. WE camped at the windy Camp Muir for one night, then we slogged up to the high camp at Ingram Flats at 11,200 feet perched right in the middle of a glacier. Huge seracs and ice falls littered the Nisqually glacier which was right above the flats. 150 down from us were huge ice falls and deep very blue crevasses. Before we made camp we poked our ice axes in many areas to make sure we weren't camping on top of a crevasse. After day 1, we were roped up at all times. To get to Ingram we crossed a very steep slope right below the Bergrshrund (where the edge of the glacier leaves a huge crevasse against the side of the mountain). This second day found us motoring through rock fall near Cadaver Gap - as we didn't want to spend any time in this area as the snow was littered with large and small rocks. Sleeping at Ingram and also at Muir we were treated to very loud noises from time to time as gravity did its work with huge ice falls and rock falls. We also heard loud noises come from down inside the crevasses.

Summit day we left the camp at Ingram at 1:30am, after laying down in our tents most of that day, but not sleeping. Pitch black dark with terrible wind as soon as we gained several hundred feet above the high camp. The trail skirted several Seracs (HUGE ice towers above the glacier) and deep crevasses which we could see with our headlights. It was BRUTALLY cold and the only reason I summited was I had 4 layers on underneath my down jacket which was all underneath my full body 8000 meter down suit. After about 30 minutes of gentle ascending on the glacier itself, we ran smack into 45-50 degree slopes on snow and ice which are slopes that are pretty dam steep..much much steeper than anything I've ever done on Shasta. We were all roped up and set up some fixed belays to get past this - about 1 hour of this steep stuff - and fortunately on parts of this route RMI had some fixed ropes setup for us pounded in with some ice flutes. This was very scary - it was very windy, (later in daylight we saw this part of the trail had the most rock and ice fall of any part of the trail). On this part of the climb I was taking up the 3rd person in our 3 man rope team - we were separated by 50 feet from each other on the ropes - and if anything went wrong you were entirely on your own (headlamp going out, freezing up ect). We couldn't communicate as we couldn't even hear each other with the howling wind. Each person had to keep moving synchronously with the other so the rope team kept moving. One part of this area was extremely difficult as it was only ice with rocks impeded in it.

We finally got past this section and started going higher up the mountain. We saw a spectacular sunrise from about 13,500 feet high on the glacier covered slopes. The Devils Postpile look alike mountain of beautiful snow covered Mt. Adams could be seen in the distance. Mt. St Helens just down from the that...and in the far distance we would make out the spired shape of Mt. Hood. This was an incredible sight in the pink morning light - no one around us - just our rope team and the mountain and the sun. The sky turning pink in the early early hours of the morning really gave inspiration to continue climb out of the darkness. The entire summit day was extremely windy. I had my electronic foot warmers which really saved the day for me - otherwise my feet would have been completely frozen. We summitted around 7am or so and took a few photos. Unfort we weren't able to stay at the summit long as we were all getting very cold from the terrible wind...and we had to be extremely careful as things would have been blown away easily.

The way down was even harder as it was later in the day and the sun had started to melt up things - and more rock and ice fall occurs which is why most people leave very early in the morning while its still freezing. Our water bottles had significantly frozen even though they were contained inside our packs - so you can see how damn cold it was! On the way back we crossed a snow bridge over a very deep steely blue crevasse. We played out the rope so we were ready to go into self arrest if anyone fell. As we approached Ingram Flats on the return we were amazed to see huge ice massive block looking seracs had fallen right onto the trail where we had walked several hours earlier. One chunk the size of a car had completely buried the trail so we had to navigate (very quickly) around this ice chunk littered section.

We arrived at the tent totally devoid of everything energy related and crashed for a few hours before somehow we roped up and moved on down the glacier and then finally a 3 hour slog through all the wet snow on the lower slopes. Lower down the mountain, Toni took a very nasty fall when he stepped through snow covered rocks down among the rocks - He went flying forward and face planted in the snow and fortunately didn't break anything. We were very lucky this trip with the weather - besides everything else that can go wrong on this dangerous mountain, the bad weather is usually one of the biggest factors that stop get people into trouble or stop them from summiting. We met climbers from Russia, France, all over the USA and other countries who came just to climb the mountain - on the route we took and on other routes. There are many routes to the top - we took the "easy" route - which was anything but easy.

We took some amazing photos from the high glaciers on the mountain and I will email once I have those developed.

Scientists estimate Rainier has a good chance of partially exploding sometime in the next 100 years. Deep layers of dirt have been found in Seattle which are directly traced back to the slopes of this mountain. Rainier has the largest amount of ice and glaciers of any mountain in the lower 48. Scientists say that even a small eruption will send millions of snow and ice and mud down into the nearby towns all with the possibility of going all the way to Seattle. The catastrophic damage of this mud flow, would be unbelievable. There is a warning system setup in the nearby towns and cities but pre warnings might be slim to none.

Washington is an incredible state - so much greenery this time of year, it looks like eternal Spring. The Rainier National park was the nations 5th national park - its well worth a visit if you've never been here..looks sorta like glacier national park - there is a rainforest in the temperate lowlands with great vista drives overlooking the mountain and other glacier covered ranges.

Now we are getting ready to take a tour of Seattle - there are so many companies that started here - we are going to visit a few. Seems like the majority of the mountaineering companies are headquarted and started here. There are damn coffee shops on every corner it seems like...real nice vibe to this town. We hit during a heat wave which has made Seattle downright pleasant - mid to upper 70's. Its right on Puget sound with soooo many islands. We are taking a ferry tomorrow to the great Olympic Peninsula and will visit the rain forest there.

dt