Mt. Rainier Attempt / Catch-up

Posted On June 22, 2022

👋 Been a while, been keeping after it, been telling the same story a few too many times now so time to return to the blog.

I helped organize a 4 person team to go for Rainier on June 21st 2022, we made it to Ingraham flats in 10.5 hours. I unfortunately was paged for work at 1am before we set off at 5am from Seattle, so limited sleep.

Day 2 started late with a 2am wakeup but we didn’t leave camp roped up until 4am. After 600 feet I felt pretty bad and knew we were not going to top out so we called it as a team and bailed. Turns out my SpO2 was down to the 70’s overnight and was in the low 80’s when we started. 🤢.

I followed Mark Smiley’s gear guide and had a pack weight of 36lbs including poles/axe/camera, less boot weight with 1.7L of water.

The 2 day push was too ambitious for current fitness/weight. I’ve lost 16lbs over the past 2 months but still have a ways to go to get back to previous weight.

Had a bit of fun hauling the wife up to the balcony to practice 6:1 hauling.

Album

Spring 2022 Catch up.

Winter 2022 was a mixed bag for me personally. I failed at my goal of 20 ski days on our Ikon passes, Kasia managed to get 16 while I only managed 10. We had a lot of on-call in our team at Expedia and the driest Jan and February didn’t help much.

I made it to 10,300 feet on Mt. Hood before turning around due to avalanche conditions.

I have been pushing my grades in climbing a LOT. Managed to onsight my first 10A on lead (sport) 5.7 (trad) and completed the 18 pitch 5.9 flyboys. I’ve climbed up to 11D in the gym now, still questing for that first 12.

Met a bunch of cool new climbing partners and pretty stoked about having gotten out with them and for future trips too.