In May 2021 a few friends and I decided to try to summit Mount Rainier. We’d done the Grand Canyon rim-to-river and Half Dome, so we figured we were ready.
We started in aptly named Paradise and the hike up to Camp Muir soon revealed our lack of preparedness. To traverse the snow we kicked our boots into the mountain to carve footholds into the slope. By the time Camp Muir greeted us, my legs were swollen from exhaustion. Camp Muir feels like the top if you’ve never been higher and we hadn’t. We were quickly reminded by the guides that we had not completed even half of the journey and the difficult part of the trek was ahead of us.
As evening fell and we prepared for our summit bid, I couldn’t overcome the pain of putting my swollen feet back into my boots. Earlier that day two of my friends that I started the trip with had retired from attempting, and in a moment of comfort, I also surrendered, consoling myself that I had made a prudent decision. Later in the morning the team that successfully summited made their way back to Camp Muir, and we started our trek down. I hiked next to one of the guys who had succeeded and I asked him “Hey so how did you do it? Were your legs not in pain from kicking into the snow yesterday?”
“Yeah, but I just sucked it up.”
The embarrassment of giving up on summit day had stayed with me for the last three years, and the looming milestone of my 30th birthday provided the needed kindling of determination.
Reinvigorated, to maximize my chances of success, I spent the weeks leading up to the summit attempt in Colorado to build on my foundation of strength and endurance. I cross trained at the University of Colorado, doing two workouts a day, making sure my physical fitness wouldn’t be the limitation.
I traveled back to Seattle days before my 30th birthday, this time alone, and drove the road to Paradise. The scenery felt familiar, but physically wildly different. My training had paid off, the hike up to Camp Muir was long but did not take the same emotional toll it did on me years prior.
We ended up being snowed on our first night and missed our first summit bid. On the second night we had a moment of luck and attempted our summit bid. The hike towards the summit felt completely different compared to anything I have ever done. Physical exhaustion paired with fear drove me to the edge of wanting to call it quits but I continued to put one foot in front of the other and evaluated at every rest point. After hours of navigating what felt like a forever ascent, we summited. I was so tired I didn’t register it right away. Then people started smiling, only to realize now we were only halfway done with this adventure.
A three-year journey culminated in a successful summit and the accolade we were the first team to summit Mt Rainier in the 2024 season.