Carly Kovacik and myself had an adventure on Mount Rainier during late June 2022. It all started months earlier at the beginning of the year when we developed the crazy idea to forgo a night at Camp Muir and make a straight car to summit ascent. Several permits, fees, and hotel room changes later, we departed Paradise near sunset on June 25th. We made steady progress up the Muir Snowfield, and reached Camp Muir near midnight. After a brief break, we tied into our rope, attached crampons, and traversed across the Cowlitz Glacier. We then ascended several long switchbacks to the top of Cathedral Gap. After another break we worked our way up past Ingraham Flats, then navigated through a maze of seracs that required numerous crevasse jumps...which thankfully were only a few feet across. After sunrise, we reached the headwall of Ingraham Glacier, which we tackled by making a large ascending switchbacking traverse. There was a lot of ice and avalanche debris through this section, which I recognized was the result of a large hanging serac towering several hundred feet uphill from the route. Thereafter, the next couple of hours turned into a long steep slog up to the summit of Rainier. During that slog, we were briefly disheartened by an additional couple hundred feet to Columbia Crest, but we found the will to go on, eventually surmounting the crest, and then walked across the flat crater to the true summit of Rainier.
Obligatory pictures, rest, and rehydration were obtained at the summit, and then we began our descent. Things got interesting when we reached the hanging serac. We first decided to glissade off to the side of the debris field, which allowed us to avoid the threat of ice fall. However, we had to traverse the lower debris field in order to reobtain the true route. During that traverse, Carly took a bathroom break, and adjusted crampons several times. This delayed our exit out of the debris field, but we did eventually make it. This is also the time we noticed a team of six climbers, roped up into two groups of three. They descended down the debris field and started to approach our location. Then, all of a sudden, Carly heard a "whoosh" sound. Huge blocks of ice subsequently came tumbling down the mountain...rolling over and over as they passed our location with great speed. Carly asked which way we should go to seek safety and I suggested uphill away from the blocks. We made progress upslope, but then were stopped in our tracks as a refrigerator size block of ice quickly and directly approached our location. That block missed one of the other members of the previously mentioned climbing party by just a couple of feet, and then stopped short of our location by about 100 feet. After the ice fall subsided, a large avalanche of wet concrete quality snow oozed down the mountain slope. Then, calm returned to the mountain. I yelled up to the other climbers and verified that miraculously everyone was alright.
Carly and I continued our descent, and reached a jumbled maze of seracs during peak afternoon heating. We came upon our first crevasse re-jump, and before Carly made the first leap, I stepped just a few feet off route and my left leg punched hip deep into a hidden crevasse. I instinctively rolled out of the hole and back onto the beaten route...feeling terrifyingly shaken but still able to maintain composure. Carly and I made sure to practice strict rope tightness from that point forward, and even belayed a few crevasse jumps when it looked like snow bridges were ready to fall away into the abyss. This slower progress brought us closer and closer to sunset. And thankfully we came upon a group of women climbers who invited us into their camp at Ingraham Flats. We conversed with them as we ate hamburgers, drank waters, and rested. During this time, they also told us that we could sleep in the public hut at Camp Muir, which we ended up doing that night. We were grateful to sleep in that hut, but the cold damp air and lack of thermal insulation during my sleep in the hut caused me to develop pneumonia a few days later. Otherwise, after a full night of chilly rest, Carly and I made the final descent down the Muir Snowfield, took a wild glissade down a steep chute beneath Panorama Point, and then hiked into Paradise by midday. I briefed the ranger on station at Paradise about our ordeal, and then we concluded our adventure with beer and pizza at the Base Camp Bar and Grill in Ashford.
For another take on the avalanche and ice fall, check out this blog here.
A YouTube video can be found here, and a google map image is here.
