Rainier Report: Monday, July 29

7:30 a.m.: We awake at a leisurely pace. I roll over twice and go back to sleep. None of this was in the plan, as we had intended to get out early. Still, we have only 3,000 feet to ascend today. Under normal loads this would be below average. Under the pigs we've chosen to strap on it feels like murder.

8:59 a.m.: Breakfast is well under way--yogurt and granola, along with a nice Earl Grey tea. We're really eating well on this trip thanks to Annabel's good choices. It's a tough call. Go with light freeze-dried food and get about 23 calories at dinner. Thankfully Annabel has chosen to set us up with fresh veggies and quality food. The boost it does for morale far more than outweighs the extra burden such heavier food lays on us.

9:23 a.m.: Keil decides he'd like to take a group back into the mineshaft to explore a little further back than he's been before, past the water. They manage to get all the way past it through Annabel's determination. She tests the water with her plastic mountaineering boot on and finds it not all that deep. A long board of Alaskan cedar found further up the shaft provides a makeshift bridge to allow the group to advance past the pool. From there it becomes a classic Indiana Jones scene. They stumble upon an abandoned mining car complete with handbrake and they also find a two-story section with scaffolding up on the walls.

11:02 a.m.: We again shoulder the loads. No one is particularly delighted to do so, as you might imagine. Now the real steep climbing begins. Though the Inter Glacier appears as benign as a steep run at a ski area, we rope up. Hidden crevasses are possible on any glacier and besides, after only a couple thousand feet we'll have made it to our traverse above Camp Curtis, about 9,200 feet, where we will make our way onto the Emmons Glacier. From there it's all caution required because the Emmons is laced with massive crevasses.

2:35 p.m.: We stand over our descent--something like 300 feet onto the Emmons Glacier--that will lead us to Camp Schurman. Steamboat Prow stands over us like a mountain itself. We speak briefly with some other climbers who inform us that mice have made their way up to Camp Schurman. We will camp about 500 feet above Schurman on the Emmons Flat. These are pretty aggressive mice who will chew their way into any food left unprotected. We intend to bring everything into the tents with us at night.

4:30 p.m.: We make it to Camp Schurman where I see an extraordinary sight, like a gift from above: an outhouse. For people who have a vicarious interest in the high mountains, the more glamorous, debilitating effects of altitude will be well known. Hypoxic stupor. Deteriorating muscles. Exhaustion. At worst, cerebral edema, the potentially fatal drainage of fluid into the brain.

A less commonly written-about side effect: this altitude is having its way with my downstairs. I guess folks would rather not read about Reinhold's forced potty breaks, when his head is swimming, short of oxygen a few miles closer to space than it was intended. All of us are flatulating severely and nature's call becomes sudden and pushy when it wants to.

4:35 p.m.: It wants to.

5:30 p.m.: We arrive at Emmons Flats above Schurman and make camp. There are already many pre-dug tent platforms so we don't have much to do in that regard.

Still, there's a lot of work to be done. We use pickets and ice axes as makeshift tent stakes, the standard means of anchoring tents to the ground when camping on snow or glacier. Keil and Annabel take to chopping out a deep kitchen. Tonight we dine on an appetizer of quesadillas followed by pasta Alfredo with lots of fresh vegetables. It really hits the spot.

9:45 p.m.: The sun has set and we can now see the lights of Enumclaw and, Keil says, Issaquah, far to the north. We get our gear sorted and the food stashed and begin preparing for bed.

10:15 p.m.: Anthony returns from some quality private time a ways from camp and reports he saw about two dozen mice scurrying around by the "blue bag" dumping cans. Not a pleasing thing to hear. We re-examine our food storage just to be on the safe side, hoping no mice will make their way into the tents.

It's things like this that remind us we're not in the wilderness exactly. This mountain, particularly on the heavily trafficked climbing routes, is more like a massive amusement park, or the Statue of Liberty. The mice are not natural here.