Trip Reports
Mount Rainier climb via Emmons Glacier Jul 5–7, 2003
Mount Rainier (4392 m/14411 ft) is the largest of the five stratovolcanoes and the highest peak in Washington State.
The Emmons Glacier on its east side is the largest glacier on Mount Rainier featuring the second most popular route up the peak.
Dustin and I climbed this route in two days during a stretch of beautiful, sunny weather.
Originally we were supposed to be three people but ended up as two in the last minute. We left Seattle around 10am Saturday morning and made it to Mount Rainier NP in about 2 hours. Due to some delay (a fallen tree had blocked the road and gotten the rangers all excited) in getting the permits (a hefty $30 for each) we didn't start hiking from White River Campground until 2.30pm. The Glacier Basin trail is very pleasant and goes trough some old growth forest. From Glacier Basin we ascended the Inter Glacier, passed Camp Curtis, and dropped onto the Emmons Glacier to get to Camp Schurman by 8.30pm. ...more
Mount Shuksan topo Jun 8–9, 2003
Mount St. Helens climb May 26, 2003
with Andreas
In the four years that I've lived in Seattle somehow I had never managed to visit Mount St. Helens. So this past weekend Andreas, a friend of mine from Germany, and I headed down to Helens to climb it (or whatever is left of it). I had tracked the weather report for the long weekend and it didn't look that good; except that it kept saying the area would be "in between systems" on Monday. So that's what we were aiming for. ...more
Brothers topo May 13–14, 2003
Mount Hood climb via South Side (Hogsback) May 1–2, 2003
Mount Hood was on my todo-list for quite some time and so I was happy to get on this climb with the Seattle Mountaineers May 1-2. Left the UW campus at 6.30pm on Thursday to meet Cindy, another UW student, to drive down to Timberline Lodge, a ride of about 4-5 hours. There we arrived at 11pm to meet the other members of the party, some of whom had wisely spend some hours in the parking lot trying to get some sleep.
We took off at midnight and made good progress along the right side of the ski area. It was a clear night and the view of the stars was quite impressive. As there was a new moon it was really dark and the mountain nowhere to be seen. At first I suspected some kind of setup but a black starless patch ahead of us gave some confidence that something big must be blocking the view - most likely Mount Hood. ...more
