Things don't always go as planned. I should have known from the beginning that this was not going to be the ordinary mountaineering trip when my flight was cancelled before I even left Little Rock. But like any adventurer, I rolled with the punches and pulled out my cell phone. A few calls and I was back on track, if not a few hours behind schedule. I got to spend a bivy at O'Hare but eventually made it in to Seattle about 12 hours late. Of course I realized in the air that my bag probably didn't make it on the same flight I did. A few more hours of frantic waiting in the airport and my giant yellow duffle finally appeared from the friendly skies.
So, gear in hand i met up with the rest of my team and headed to the Paradise Lodge for some quick skills review and a little dinner. We were up well before dawn the next day, loaded and hiking up the Muir Snow field in route to our camp on the Ingraham Glacier. The team consisted of my friend Bobbie from Colorado, Tina from Little Rock, and Bobbie's friend John from California that I met for the first time at the airport in Seattle.
The hike up the Muir Snow field is not much fun. And for Tina it was her first time to actually use crampons on snow. She mastered them like a champ. But it was clear early in the day that John was having a little trouble. I let Bobbie and Tina plod along and get better acquainted, while I stayed back with John and urged him on while secretly stealing gear from his pack. He had greatly over packed.
It was well past noon when we finally made it into Muir Camp. By this time I was getting pretty worried about John. His pace was extremely slow, and even after giving his pack to a nice young french fellow to carry the last half mile, he wasn't any quicker. When we made it to Muir, I immediately visited the rangers and asked them to check in on John. They took him into their hut, filled him full of fluids and said he might have a touch of AMS.
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| Freddie our French Porter |
It was a quick decision that John would stay at Muir while the rest of the team continued on to Ingraham Flats for the night. We were behind schedule, but we still decided to push on.
It was finally time to rope up! The boot pack to Ingraham was well established although littered with rock fall. We had to step over a few minor crevasses, but the hike to camp went smooth.
We made it into camp with just enough time to select our tent sites before the sun dipped behind the summit and the winds picked up. It was amazing how quickly the day went from blue bird skies to an all out gale. It was a battle to get the tents up in winds that high.
By the time the tents were up and everyone inside, Tina and Bobbie were both battling to stay warm. I began melting snow and delivering hot water to them so we could have dinner and bed down for the night. The alarm was set for 12 a.m.
After little sleep in the O'Hare airport, and only a few hours at the Paradise Lodge, it didn't take me long to fall asleep. Unfortunately I slept the the 12:00 alarm as well. I crawled out of my tent at 1 a.m. to find the winds still howling as bad as before. I had to shout loudly just for Tina and Bobbie to hear me outside of their tents. We quickly decided the summit was not in the cards for that night.
When we awoke the next morning the winds finally began to subside, but the extended weather forecast was not looking very promising. It was a hard decision, but we agreed that the this was not the year for us. We headed down to pick up John at camp Muir and make our way down to Paradise.
After a hot meal and a warm bed, we came up with the bright idea of heading up to the Olympic Peninsula to explore and use up the rest of our time in Washington.
We spent some time exploring Fort Worden State Park, the Puget Sound and sea kayaking.
Although it didn't start out as a great trip, it did end as the best failed mountaineering trip I've ever been on!
