Camp Muir. . .almost

As much as I'm missing Melis & Abee Joy (visiting her folks in UT this week), I'll be honest - I was pretty stoked about this hike. Darrel, Mike & I left after our softball game (we won 14-0) and camped at Cougar Rock campground, near the entrance to Mt Rainier NP. Mike treated us to dough boy's & a killer breakfast. On Saturday morning we were joined by Kristin, Steve, and Jeremy for the assault on the mountain. We were headed roughly for the horizon behind the two tall trees on the right.

We started at 5,400' elevation, on a mission to get to Camp Muir, which is at 10,100'. Attempting a 4,700' climb in June takes a bit of luck, as the weather at that elevation is always a wild card. For a couple of hours, it was beautiful - about half sun & half clouds. But the clouds kept building, and soon we started hearing far-off thunder. Around 8,300' the clouds moved in pretty thick. Below is a group trying for the summit. Is that a ghost?! Oh. . .just you, Kristin.

As we sat & grabbed a bite for lunch, we started getting pelted by hail, which sent us scrambling for our jackets. Shortly after that, the lightning got a little too close for comfort, and chased us down. I think we could have endured the pounding of the hail, but none of us wanted to have to explain to someone else's family why we didn't turn back when the lightning started.

It hailed on us for ~45 minutes non-stop, with plenty of booming thunder - a reminder to how quickly conditions up at elevation can change. We were all pretty soggy before long, but had a great time on the way down. Steve here demonstrates perfect glisading technique.

Darrel, Kristin, Steve, Mike, Jeremy, Brian

And, just as we got back to Paradise, most of the clouds on Rainier broke, and it looked like the weather was pretty decent up there again. Typical.

As Darrel pointed out, it's nice for the mountain to win once in a while. It breeds a healthy respect for the wildness of Creation, deepens the legends of those tough hikes, and gives you a good excuse to go try it again.