Mount Rainier, 14,410'

Pt1: "Her Mighty Hump in my Sights"

July, 2013, Seattle vacation, I saw her. I floated on an inner tube along the shores of Lake Washington. A dock jutted out like the capital letter ‘T’ slammed full of hipster adult-kids (30 some year old millennials believing they’re still super cool 20 year olds) splayed out like summer seals in the sun. I floated out from the shoreline with a beer and my girlfriend. There, out beyond the waters, a little hazy, something gigantic, an object to foreign for my Midwestern flatland mindset to comprehend. I became mesmerized, transfixed, compelled, and in the end, for three years, obsessed. Towering, strong, volcanic, and beautiful: Mount Rainier. My new object of desire.

I floated there, mildly buzzed and gawked at the enormous size she sat upon the horizon and told myself that day, one day, I would summit her.

One year later I returned. That summer I trained. I geared up, and booked my flight. When I got to Seattle it was a week of angst. Weather conditions on the mountain wouldn’t open a proper window of summit opportunity. Fires broke out on one side of the mountain and our route continued to be hit by storms, sleet, and rain. We waited till the very last opportune day hoping for any glimpse of hope before abandoning the mission and going another direction with our mountain aspiration. We drove 10hrs south into Northern California to climb Mount Shasta. Rainier would have to wait another year.

Mount Shasta Post: https://steemit.com/moutain/@ghostfish/sometimes-i-climb-mountains

A sadness filled my heart on the flight home as I flew over her summit. Another year in passing. Yet joys of Shasta still resonated.

Another year training: hiking across St Paul to Minneapolis, carrying heavy gear up and down any little bit of vertical slope I could find. Trekking in the woods, breaking in a new pair of Mountain boots. The game plan was set, August, 2015 I returned to Seattle.

Things were looking good. Weather, attitude, time, and money. So good in fact, my crazy mountain climbing buddy had a great idea to have a pre-summit summit of the 10,781 foot glacier cover peak of Mount Baker before attempting our Mount Rainier climb ("Kind of like a warm up," he said). Sounded like a solid idea at the time.

F@ck it I thought, having the ‘I can do it all’ attitude, and I agreed 100% with this brilliant idea. We had seven days to do it all.

Teaming up with two other dudes and at 6am we set off to summit Mount Baker in a 48hr trip:

Mt Baker Post: https://steemit.com/adventure/@ghostfish/t0uqbtf8

On the fourth day we rested, letting the wounds of our feet heal.

No regrets!

On the fifth we packed back up and set out on our ultimate quest:

Log Book: 11:26pm Thursday, two days ago, time is an illusion. The mountains own it. They determine how to measure the passing of light over the planet's surface. Tall guardians quake with magma and temper. She granted our wishes and opened up the night. A clear universe weaving a thick belt of stars painted across a galaxy. We pushed on through wind, through rock, over glacier, over gaping voids of pure dark blue bottomlessness. Stepping gently over the cold and on melting snow, past avalanche, across the upper deadly bergschrund, and traveled three more switchbacks on the final attempt to summit.

Mount Rainier Continues...