Part two: The ASCENT

I like to keep my many readers on their toes, which is why I've waited so long to post part two. Well, that or planning a wedding as actually a lot of work and there is just not a ton of time left over to blog. Also, Matt is posting a series of the event(s) himself, ya know, if you're interested in reading his version. It's pretty good stuff. You'll see some of the same photos over there, too.

So, without further ado, I bring you THE ASCENT. 

Thursday:

After a good three weeks of not training training like crazy, we were finally ready. Brent flew in from Texas and we all met at the grocery store at about 10pm for some last-minute food prep. We walked out with enough food to feed us for probably an entire week, but Brent was bound and determined to not eat any freeze-dried Mountain House so most of the food we walked out with was his. Cooking quinoa at midnight before the hike was probably a bad idea, but it looked like he enjoyed it with his avocados and tomatoes up at Muir the next night. I won't say my Mountain House chicken teriyaki wasn't delicious, but I will say his food looked even better. So, ya know, he might have been onto something (you have to understand that most food looked absolutely disgusting the entire trip. Even trailmix). 

Friday:

With two hours of couch sleep under my belt, I was woken up at 4am to quickly dress and get my pack in the car. Mike showed up with Dallyn and Aaron, who were bright-eyed and bushy tailed (obviously they went to bed at a much  more reasonable hour the night before), and we piled in our cars and left. With a quick stop at Jack In The Box (yes, I am ashamed to say that happened) we showed up at Paradise and were ready to go around 8am. I'm not entirely sure how the others were feeling, but excitement and anxiety were definitely at the top of my list. We had a mountain to climb. And it was daunting. Luckily we had Mike and the boys with us. They were perky the entire way. It was INCREDIBLE because I definitely was not perky the whole way up.

^^the guys who got me up that mountain

^^ some more guys who got me up the mountain 

(not pictured: Mike)

^^ the team.

and mountain.

that we climbed.

Approximately half an hour after we started hiking I lost all concept of time. There was a lot of sun and a lot of darkness the rest of the trip, and not enough sleep. Bare with me.

After hiking through absolutely gorgeous fields of wildflowers and marmots (super cute), we stopped at Pebble Creek to fill up on water, snacks, and enthusiasm for the climb ahead of us. Our day hike up the snowfield two weeks before was a lot more fun. This time we had packs on our back weighing between 45-55 lbs, and the snow had melted enough that the climb was a little more tricky. 

It took us a few hours, but 3,000ft later we finally made it to Camp Muir. Our plan was to get some food and continue on to Ingraham Flats later that day, but as it turns out..... hiking is really hard when you've hardly slept. So plans changed and we ended up camping both nights at Muir. 

After a long leisurely nap, we woke up and feasted like kings and crawled back into our sleeping bags for another few hours before waking up early on Saturday morning rested and ready for our ascent up the mountain.

Just kidding.

As it turned out, most of us couldn't sleep at all that afternoon even though we were totally wiped out. Even after our delicious Mountain House meals (and quinoa) sleeping proved to be difficult. I think I got another two hours that night before waking up before 4am to start the ascent. Next time (because there could be a next time) I'm making sure I sleep. Somehow.

^^Matt's nap of death the second we arrived at Muir. We all wished sleeping would be that easy later. But it wasn't.

So with our packs much lighter and our headlamps on, we set off up the mountain to Ingraham Flats. First we crossed one glacier with crevasses surrounding us, then we scrambled up a rocky slope (a skree?), and then onto the flats where I watched the most incredible sunrise I had ever seen. I don't know how many times "wow!" escaped my lips. 

^^ sunrise over Ingraham Flats

And then we roped up. We had two teams: Mike, Dallyn, and Aaron on one, and Brent, Matt, John and I on the other. Mike's team took the lead. Still feeling new to ropes, crampons, and crevasses we plunged on ahead.

With a handful of crevasses to step across, I was grateful to hear Matt and Brent in surround sound saying, "it's just another step, Lara. Don't even think about it." Because I needed it. Stepping over those cracks is NERVE WRACKING.  I understand now where the expression "shaking in your boots" comes from, because I did a lot of that. And then I learned climbing on rocks up Disappointment Cleaver in crampons is just as nerve wracking as going over a crevasse. Going up that cleaver you felt as if you would fall off the side of the cliff behind us if you took one wrong step. It took us a few hours to get from the the flats to the top of the cleaver, which is where I broke down.

^^ emotionally exhausted

Yup. I cried. I am not ashamed to admit it. I can't believe I made it that far before losing it. We were sitting down in the middle of a snowfield (covered in crevasses) right below this enormous glacier covered in deep gauges that made it look entirely impassable, except for the three ladders we saw from below, that I knew we had to climb. I couldn't even look at John because I was being such a wimp, so I grabbed Matt and I couldn't even say anything more than, "I don't think...." Luckily Matt is all tough love (their family motto is "I can do hard things!") and took one look at me and told me that I could do it. Basically he was telling me I had no options so I better man up and do it. So, naturally, once we got going again I cried a little more, and then I manned up and did it. (This makes me think of my Oma telling me to "just do it, damn it!" which is one of her favorite quotes, even though the moment I got down the mountain she told me never to climb the mountain again.)

And then....

The Ice Step. 

The first ladder was vertical over a crevasse that cut into the mountain and then downward. Perfect. I could do that one easily without looking. With my ice ax in hand, I climbed the ladder and made it up to Matt who was just about to walk over the next. Sounds safe and fine, right? But we were literally on a ledge not more than three feet wide, crevasses ready to eat us up with the smallest trip up. But it was fine, because we were manning up and doing hard things. Matt swore a little bit in German as he walked across the 8-10ft ladder, which made me feel all sorts of great about climbing over it myself. And then it was my turn. Who would walk across a ladder when they could crawl? Not me! So I crawled. Lower center of gravity sounded like a much better idea while involuntarily shaking. We were all very grateful for the wood planks they put on top of those ladders. 

And then it was John's turn. 

Just as he was going across we heard the whoop whoop whoop of a Chinook helicopter. This is the part of the story I'm not good at telling because I was mostly entirely absorbed in staying firmly attached to the mountain and watching John not fall off the ladder into the dark blue abyss. Basically the Chinook came to rescue an injured climber, circled a couple of times, and then flew away. Wind and helicopters do. not. mesh. well. Later we saw a different helicopter fly away with the kit dangling precariously on a line 50 ft below. Or something. I took one look at that while sitting on the side of the mountain (much higher up) and said, "Now THAT is scary." 

Back at the ice step we had just one more ladder to cross. This could possibly have been the worst, because even though the gap was maybe 5 or 6 feet across, the last rung on the ladder was broken in half. That meant taking a big step (or crawl..step) onto a wobbly ladder over a crevasse that was who-knows-how-deep. On the way back down the mountain, I noticed that 1. going down the ice steps was scarier than going up, and 2. that the ice seemed a lot less solid, and 3. that the broken side of the ladder seemed to almost not be long enough to reach the other side. Also when we were coming down, the moment John was about to pass over the middle ladder, where he was when the Chinook came by on the way up the mountain, we heard this big crack and then a crash somewhere in the depths of the glacier. Matt had already crossed all the ice steps, and we heard him yelling below us, "Did you guys HEAR THAT? Something BIG just broke below us!" I think at that point a few of us wanted nothing more than to be OFF that mountain right then and there.  But we crossed the rest of the ice steps and made it down, which maybe we shouldn't have, because not long after we crossed we passed a group of guides that were going for a sunrise summit the next morning. They turned around because one of them took a look at that ladder and wouldn't cross it. Apparently it was not nearly so precarious two days before when she had last gone on it. We kind of all just looked at each other after they told us that, like, "yup, we just did that."

^^Mike on ladder one and John on ladder two (not pictured: ladder of death aka #3)

^^left: crevasse view from ladder #2 looking into the mountain

right:  looking down

And that is where I leave you. Some 12,000+ ft on Mt. Rainier, with just 2,000 left to go, the story of how I got engaged, and making it home.

Part one here.