Team Mango

observation rock - september 18, 2005

sunday i climbed observation rock (8,364’) — a lump of pumice on the north flank of mt. rainier. i have three required climbs left to complete the intermediate climbing class, and this intermediate ice climb was to count as one of those. [i didn’t feel like embedding the photos in this entry, but you can see them here.]

our team consisted of our leader, steve mckim (who led my mount thompson climb two weeks previously), and seven intermediate students — frank, paul, jonathan, chris, steve t., rich, and me. paul, jonathan and i drove up together saturday night, and the whole team camped at the trailhead.

we hit the trail at 5:15a, dropping down a few hundred feet over two miles before turning uphill to spray park, a beautiful meadow with a spectacular view of the big dog (rainier) and our objective, observation rock. contrary to my attempt on mt. thompson two weeks ago, i felt like a million bucks hiking the approach. i was amazed at what one measely week of training did to improve my endurance.

shortly after arriving in spray park, we met a couple coming down the trail. at first i thought, “man, they REALLY had to get up early to have gotten up this high and heading back already”. but it turns out they had hiked up the day before and somehow gotten lost, so they spent the night on the mountain. both of them were wearing sneakers, cotton jeans, and cotton hooded sweatshirts. they also were carrying nothing except an army-style canteen, which they informed us was empty. we offered them a full liter of water to take with them for the 3 mile hike back out, but they refused (although the woman took a small sip). it also turns out that the man had proposed to the woman the previous night. instead of congratulations, we hit him with comments like “so, was that something you did when you thought you might not make it through the night?”.

anyway, we continued on, exiting the main trail for a climbers trail that went up to a small ridge that curved around to the southeast. it soon turned to scree, and as the sun hadn’t hit the trail yet, many of the rocks still had a thin layer of frost, so we had to take great care with our footing. chris found one of the slippery rocks and took a hard fall, banging his hip on a rock. he was sore but carried on.

we reached the base of the climb at 9:30a, geared up, roped up, and pondered the 400 vertical feet of snow and ice in front of us. i paired up with frank, for whom this climb would be his graduation climb for the intermediate class. i was first to lead up the bottom portion of the climb, which started out at a relatively low angle, while the other 3 pairs climbed up parallel to us. the route had a hard crust of snow and we could have easily climbed it unprotected, but i placed some pro just for the practice. i placed one picket first and we started a running belay (frank would climb simultaneously with me). further up, i dug down and found some decent ice below about 4 inches of snow, so i managed to place 3 screws as i continued up. i reached a noticeable steepening of the route, so i stopped to set up a belay anchor and belayed frank up to my position.

frank took a breather, then continued on for the next pitch. although it was steeper, there was still the crust of snow that made it easy climbing, but likewise, frank placed a screw about every 15 meters. frank got to within about 30 meters of the top of the route when we ran out of rope, so he set up a belay anchor. i cleaned my anchor and frank belayed me up to him.

normally, i would lead the next pitch so frank and i wouldn’t have to swap positions at the belay anchor, but i offered to let frank lead the final pitch since this was his graduation climb. he didn’t want to bother switching positions, so i led. the slope was at its steepest at the very top — maybe 60 degrees. i placed one screw, then was up and over the lip at the top. i ran it out about 10 meters and set up an anchor. there was still good ice below the snow at the top, so i placed two screws and belayed frank up at 12:30p.

being first up allowed frank and me about an hour to rest and eat some snacks in the sun while the other 3 teams made their way up. we broke down our anchors and packed up our gear for the final scramble to the summit. it was about 400 feet up a slope of loose pumice, which wasn’t too enjoyable. but we made it nonetheless, and all of us hung out on the summit for about an hour enjoying the views, eating lunch and conversing. somehow we got on the subject of the enumclaw horse farm incident and, being a group of 8 men, the conversation quickly “went downhill” from there, so we decided to take that cue to head down at 2:30p.

we exited via the south ridge of observation rock, then down the scramble route, which curved around to the east, then north, across the flett glacier. we met back up with the route we had taken on the approach, back through the nasty scree (sans frost this time), and back down the wonderland trail. About 2 miles before we reached the cars, I got stung by a bee on my right hand — luckily my only injury for the weekend! We reached the cars by 6:00p.

Overall, I have to label this climb a complete success. Physically I felt great, the weather was perfect, the views spectacular, and aside from the bee sting, no injuries to report — not even the usual blisters.

Posted by jason at September 19, 2005 1:42 PM