This blog is maintained by the Mount Rainier National Park Climbing Ranger team for use by recreational non-guided climbers. Use these reports as a baseline, but plan for changing conditions.
A few climbing teams have been making it to the top of Mount Rainier despite the unseasonably cold weather and stormy skies. The first snow flurries fell last week along with some major lightning storms adding to the wintry vibe.
The Muir Snowfield has been in great condition this August - no visible cracks have opened up and though the snow has been slick and consolidated with many melt/freeze cycles - there's no skeletal blue ice showing yet. Trekking poles and shoe chains are advised for the slick sections. Also - be careful of rocks at the end of many of the glissade tracks! There's a couple of major snow chutes that folks have been sliding down which end in pointy rocks - be sure that you can see the end of any glissade track before launching down it.
At Camp Muir there's not as many folks as there were in July. A feeling of solitude has returned. There's no running water at camp so be sure to bring a stove and plenty of fuel to melt snow. You'll probably want extra coffee/cocoa/tea with these colder nights.
Above camp there's not any big changes to the route. The lower freezing level has sort of locked in the route and less changes have occurred since it's cooler up high. Crossing the Cowlitz is still straight forward - there's more crevasses open, but they're all easy to navigate around. Cathedral Gap has a very defined and well wanded route through it. Just above the gap and below Ingraham Flats Camp there's a section of the route that's exposed to rockfall from Cathedral Rocks. Don't linger underneath these rocky cliffs. A good way to tell you're in a rockfall zone is that there's rocks littering the glacier around you.
From Ingraham Flats there's two routes that have been commonly climbed in the last week. One is the standard DC Route which ascends out of Ingraham Flats and traverses onto the Cleaver itself and then reaches the Crater Rim fairly directly above the Cleaver. This route currently has three ladder crossings. The other route that's been climbed traverses out from Ingraham Flats and goes below the Cleaver and ascends the Emmons Glacier to reach the Upper Mountain. It ties back in with the standard route around 13,250 feet. This route does not have any ladder crossings, but there's a steep section which ascends a snow ramp through a jumble of snow blocks where a fixed rope line has been placed to use as a hand-line for extra security. See map below for the approximate route locations.
Note that these are not the only two ways to the summit. Like all great glaciated climbing routes on the Cascade Volcanoes, there's always multiple ways to the summit - and being prepared to find another way when a crevasse bridge falls away or the glacier shifts is an important skill to have!
A last note of caution as we get closer to winter: Consider your contingency plan when the weather gets colder/stormier. Helicopters and rescue teams cannot respond when weather conditions get too stormy; any small mishap (like a crevasse fall, losing a glove, twisting an ankle, getting hit by a rock, etc.) can become a dire situation in a storm. Make sure you consider your self-rescue plan when climbing up into conditions that can prevent outside rescue resources from helping you!
