Mount Rainier - Winter Epic, Camp Muir

April 1st, 2006 osgumero

Winter Mountaineering Epic somewhere near (or far from?) Camp Muir

This trip my friend (the same one that was with me on Success Cleaver) and I decided to head up as far as we could on Rainier during the winter.  Originally we planned on trying a summit bid, but realized the weather probably wouldn’t cooperate, so we settled on just making a trip up half way and do some winter mountaineering practice. We set out from Paradise up towards camp Muir as a somewhat iffy day, but most of the mountain was still visible so we had high hopes. As we began our trek up the Muir Snowfield, the weather began to deteriorate rapidly.

The clouds went from hovering around 12,000-13,000 feet to less than 8000 in the time span of just a few minutes. Soon the wind started picking up and snow started falling. We were in a textbook Winter Whiteout somewhat high on Rainier. Navigation in a whiteout is nigh impossible. We got out our map and compass and navigated by trying to follow a bearing to camp Muir so we could seek shelter in the hut. But we realized we were lost and weren’t going to make it and it was going to be dark soon, so we decided we better started digging in and hunkering down for the night before something bad would happen.

As we were fighting to set up our tent, there was a brief “clearing” when visibility went from several feet to maybe 100 feet when I noticed a person coming towards us. At first I thought it was a ranger who was going to check our permit and tell us that we can’t camp here because this isn’t Muir, but it turns out that it was a skier who was going to go up to Muir and then ski down that day. He had an earlier start and less gear, so he got caught much higher on the mountain during the storm. He quickly informed us that he needed our help, as he had no more food, water, shelter, or clothing.

The first rule of whiteouts is don’t be in one, but if you are stay put and wait it out. He had gotten lost and tried to find his way down and ended up on the Nisqually Glacier and almost fell into a crevasse. It was then he realized the peril he was in. After several hours of wandering around, he saw our bright yellow tent during the “clearing”. It was a very long night trying to fit 3 people into our small 2 person mountaineering tent. We imparted of our supplies to him and hunkered down for the night, which was a miserable experience on so many levels. The winds were so strong that we had to have one person try to stabilize the tent. If he hadn’t run into us that night, there is no way he would have survived the night. Looking back we probably should have turned around earlier that day at the first sign of bad weather, but being two invincible seniors that we were, we kept pushing on and ended up saving some guys life. Funny how that works, huh?

Entry Filed under: Whatever!, Climbing, Winter Rec, "Worse Trip Ever" Comp.