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Trip Report: Day 1 of 8 (Thursday, June 27, 2002)
"It's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." - Sir Edmund Hillary
I was awake far too early for a vacation. It was 7 AM on Thursday, and today I start my trip out to Mt. Rainier for a summit attempt and visit to the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I had spent the last evening in Minneapolis with my brother and his girlfriend, and the evening prior in Osage, IA, with my parents. I think all of my family was a bit worried about this trip... Mt. Rainier had been an itch on my back for the last 4 or so years and I was finally on a stable trip to go climb it (I've had several trips fail way in the early stages). Saeed Toossi, a good friend, had agreed to climb the Disappointment Cleaver route with me and we'd see what happen on the mountain. I had been waiting to climb this for a while now and was excited to get going.
After a quick snack for breakfast and a quick drive to the airport, I was going through security and walking to my gate for my flight to Portland, OR, where I would meet Saeed. The adventure in the airport had just begun. The departure gate was C4. I was around C2 when Northwest Airlines announced a gate change to F6. Anyone familiar with the airport will cringe at the sound of that. I walked across the airport and headed to the new gate. Upon arriving, I discovered the flight was *FULL* and the plane had maintenance. It was to be my 2nd ever delay with Northwest Airlines. After yet another gate change and plane change, we finally were aloft at 11:30 AM (Central time) for the 2.5 hour flight to Portland.
Strangely, my last flight for a mountain climb had a breakfast, and this did too. The warm bagel, cereal, milk and banana were delivered shortly after we leveled out at 35,000 feet. I had a good talk to the couple next to me throughout the flight. They discovered I was climbing the tallest point in Washington State and wished me luck. Shortly after entering Oregon, we started our descent into PDX and I had one quick view of the massif before we poked into the clouds. Coincidently, this would be the last look at the upper mountain for about 3 days. We touched down at 12:09 PM PST in Portland and taxied to our gate (only about 30 minutes late actually). By the time I grabbed my gear from the baggage carousel, Saeed's flight had arrived and he had just appeared. I flagged him down; we collected our gear and headed toward the Enterprise rental car counter. An eccentric woman got our Dodge Intrepid rental going (those have *HUGE* trunks!) and before I knew it, we were out on I-5 heading up to Mt. Rainier National Park.
The 2.5-hour drive was a good chance for me to get caught up with Saeed and go over the final plans for the next week. The plan at the time was to head to the Paradise Inn on Mt. Rainier (5420') and start climbing the next few days. The summit day was looking like Sunday, June 30, with some random camping and national park visits following the trip. The weather was cool and cloudy with periods of light rain as we drove progressively higher and closer to Mt. Rainier. We arrived at the Longmire entrance at Mt. Rainier around 3 PM (I think) and got a quick weather brief from the Ranger at the station. The weather didn't sound good at all. I kept my hopes up and we drove the narrow, 30-mile road up to Paradise, passing views I had seen during my last visit. We arrived at Paradise under very low, rainy, nasty-looking clouds and went to the Jackson Visitor Center to get our weather brief.
The weather looked rotten all week, up until the time when I had to fly home. The whole climb looked as if it was off. The ranger did suggest that a trip up to Camp Muir (10,000') may work tomorrow, but no higher (due to 60-mph winds on the summit and snow). We noted this, and checked in at the Paradise Inn. The inn looked *EXACTLY* like something from The Shining, and at any time, I was expecting to turn around and see two little girls watching me on their tricycles. We got our rooms and decided to just take a day pack tomorrow and see how high we could get. I was bummed already and had a whole trip ahead of me. We all decided to go down and eat from the hotel's restaurant. It was very spendy and the food was a bit on the weird side.
It was almost 9 PM now, and I was feeling the Jet Lag. It should have been 11. We all decided to get some shut-eye and wake in the morning to see what we thought of the weather. I headed back to my cubicle of a room and tried to get some shut eye. After an hour or so I fell asleep praying that the weather would improve and I would wake to a beautiful blue sky, much how I remembered Paradise the last time I visited it.
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