Rising more than 14,000 feet from the surrounding terrain, Mount Rainier is an island of ice, snow and volcanic rock higher than anything near it, a ghostly presence standing over the shoulder of the city of Seattle.
More than ten thousand people make a pilgrimage to climb Rainier each year—a mere fraction of the two million people who come just to see it up close. It’s notable for its size, singularity and our obsession with climbing it.
Culture
Rainier is an enormous presence in the Northwest, both physically and metaphorically. It’s 100 square miles at its base, occupying more land than the city of Seattle. On a clear day in Seattle, you can see “the Mountain” from many places, including the West Seattle Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park, Queen Anne Hill and Kerry Park. It’s only 60 miles as the crow flies from the famous Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, and about 14,380 feet higher. It’s the most topographically prominent peak in the Lower 48, meaning it’s the highest thing around for miles in any direction—it stands alone.
Rainier has its own beer, minor league baseball team and hundreds of businesses named after it, as well as dozens of books written about it. It’s on Washington’s license plate, arguably making it more famous than any other icon in the state, including the Space Needle, and maybe even Richard Sherman. It’s not only one of America’s most famous mountains—it’s a volcano, and an active one at that.
Rainier is an active stratovolcano, one of the 16 members of the Decade Volcanoes list for its history of violent eruptions and proximity to a heavily populated area (though the 3.5 million people living near its base might like to forget that). Climbers have reported getting blasted on one side by cold air blowing over the mountain and by hot steam escaping the volcanic crater on the other side. Rainier’s nearby neighbor, Mt. St. Helens, erupted in 1980, killing 57 people and causing the largest landslide ever recorded. If Rainier erupted, the biggest danger would be the cataclysmic mudslides, or lahars, that would roll down the mountain in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
California’s Mount Whitney is higher, but you might argue that Rainier is more interesting. It creates its own weather, partly due to its enormous height and partly to its stance 110 miles away from the Pacific Ocean. It has more than 130 earthquakes each year, and gets more than 50 feet of snow annually. It’s the mountain with the largest glacier system in the continental U.S.—25 glaciers covering more than 35 square miles, including the world’s largest network of volcanic glacier caves (almost two miles).
The First Ascent
Rainier’s first guide was a hesitant one. In August 1870, Hazard Stevens, a Civil War general, along with Philemon Beecher Van Trump, secretary to the Washington Territory governor, hired a Yakama Nation chief named Sluiskin to get them to timberline so they could try to climb to the summit of the mountain. Sluiskin, who had a healthy dose of fear and respect for the mountain, at first led the men around in circles trying to tire them out, then told them cautionary tales of Tahkoma, the evil spirit who lived on top of the mountain. Eventually, before they attempted the climb, Sluiskin made the men sign a note that said they’d attempted the climb against his warnings, waiving his responsibility for their lives.
Stevens and Van Trump charged out of their camp with one ice axe, one rope, and two alpenstocks, climbing to the current site of Camp Muir at 10,188 feet in four hours, then another seven hours to the summit via what became known as the Gibraltar Ledges route—very close to today’s standard route to the summit, the Disappointment Cleaver route. The men summited at 5 p.m. on August 17, 1870, then huddled in an open bivy in a cavern next to a sulfur steam vent for the night. They made it back to camp the next day, unscathed except for a gash on Van Trump’s leg.
The identity of the men’s guide, Sluiskin, was debated in the decades following their ascent, and even more confusing is a claim by another Yakama named Saluskin, who said he guided two government surveyors to a camp near Mystic Lake before they climbed to the summit crater via the Emmons and Winthrop glaciers.
Climbing Routes
The National Park Service keeps climbing statistics on 23 major routes on Rainier. More than two-thirds, and in some years almost three-quarters, of the 10,000-plus climbers who attempt a summit bid on Mount Rainier will head up the Disappointment Cleaver route—tromping up 9,000 feet of elevation gain in about nine lateral miles, almost all on snow and ice, and almost half of it in crampons.
The Disappointment Cleaver route has been the standard guided route on Rainier since 1957. Most climbers break the climb into two days—hiking from the parking lot at Paradise (5,400 feet) up the Muir Snowfield to Camp Muir, then spending the evening in the hut there or in a tent before an alpine start at midnight or 1 a.m. the next morning. Most of the summit day’s travel is by headlamp, wearing crampons up the Cowlitz Glacier, climbing the rocks of Disappointment Cleaver, and then winding over the crevassed Ingraham and Emmons glaciers, arriving at the summit crater shortly after sunrise. The post-summit descent to Paradise is done in one push.
National Park Service climbing statistics for the past five years put the average success rate at about half (49.54 percent). Notably, though, in 2014 a whopping 57 percent of climbers summited—6,240 out of 10,949 climbers, the most since 1999, when more than 7,400 climbers topped out.
The second-most-popular route on Rainier, the Emmons Glacier route, sees by comparison only about 1,500 attempts annually. All the other routes see much less traffic. The classic alpine climbing route on the mountain, Liberty Ridge, climbs 5,500 feet between two huge walls on the mountain’s north face: the Willis Wall and the Liberty Wall. In a busy year, the route sees around 100 attempts, most of which are completed in three to five days. Climbers can be exposed to icefall and rock fall on the route, however. In May 2014, two guided parties were likely swept by an avalanche more than 3,000 feet off the route; all six climbers were killed.
See For Yourself
Three major guide services handle Mount Rainier climbs: Alpine Ascents International, International Mountain Guides, and Rainier Mountaineering, Incorporated. Guided climbs range from three to five days and cover most of the major routes on the mountain.
Self-guided climbs require a climbing pass purchased through the park, as well as requisite knowledge of route finding, glacier travel, crevasse rescue, avalanche mitigation, and mountain safety.
Plenty of hikers who want to see Rainier without committing to a summit attempt tackle the hike from Paradise to Camp Muir, an eight-mile, 4,600-foot gain round-trip climb up trails and snow to Camp Muir, a great lunch spot. No one’s promising you won’t be tempted to come back and climb it, though.
Getting There
From Seattle, drive south on I-5 and exit onto I-405 N. Drive east on I-405, taking Exit 4 to WA 169 S. Drive south on WA 169 for 25 miles to Enumclaw, turning east onto WA 164 in town and following it for one half-mile to its intersection with WA 410. Turn left onto WA 410 and follow it east and south to its intersection with WA 123. Stay straight on WA 123 and drive 11 miles to a right turn into the Stevens Canyon Entrance to the national park. Follow Stevens Canyon Road to a T-intersection with Paradise Road. Follow signs up to the Paradise parking area and visitor center.
Resources
Guide services:
The Mountain Project
Mount Rainier National Park
Mount Rainier Climbing Rangers Blog
Photography by Angela Crampton – REI Employee.