I teamed up with three friends of mine from Alpine Rescue to make this attempt on Mt Rainier. Brad, Loren, and Melissa and I had all been part of same prospective member class in 2002. Over the last couple years, we have worked and played together quite a bit, so we were all very comfortable with each other. After a couple months of planning and training together, the time had finally come. Our route was the Emmons Glacier, which is supposed to be one of the largest glaciers in the lower 48. It's also supposed to have spectacular views. Boy did it ever!!!!

We left Denver very early, I mean painfully early, like 7:00am!! That put us in Seattle a little before 9:00am pacific time. This allowed us to get last minute supplies (mainly fuel), and make the hour and a half drive to Mt Rainier. Before driving to the White River trialhead, we had to make a quick stop at the ranger station to check in. We had reserved campsites for Aug 4 at Glacier Basin Camp and then Aug 5 at Camp Schurman, but couldn't book anything after that. We were wanting to stay another day at either camp knowing that we would be wiped out after summit day and would not feel like hiking all the way out to the trailhead. Luckily, they set aside 40% of available sites to be booked when you start the trip, so we were able to get a campsite for Friday, Aug 6.

We all spent about an hour or so in the parking lot getting all our gear together and already crying about how heavy our packs were. We finally sucked it up and began our hike to our first camp a little before 2:00pm. Fortunately, the elevation of the trailhead starts around 4300 feet and only gains about 1700 feet over 3.1 miles to Glacier Basin Camp. Although it was a gradual climb, it was hot and dry which is not what we expected being in the Pacific Northwest. Still, we all managed to reach camp in less than two hours. We quickly set up our tents then spent the next couple hours just relaxing and enjoying the views around us. There were a lot of low clouds blowing across the summit that kept Rainier mostly hidden, but we would still get an occasional glimpse. We also had great views of the bottom portion of the Inter Glacier, which we would be climbing tomorrow on our way to Camp Schurman.

Around 5:30, Melissa, who turns out is actually a pretty good back country cook, began preparing our dinner. Prior to the trip, she had dehydrated a bunch of stuff and mixed up several meals for all of us. The recipes she followed were a little off on the number of portions, though. It not only fed the 4 of us well, but also a couple guys from the camp next to us. While we were eating, the mosquitoes were becoming unbearable so we ended up retreating to our tents shortly after we were done. Even though it was still light out, it didn't take long for me to fall asleep.