(from an anonymous MHO trip participant, who is ever so kindly serving as an example of why most outdoorsy people are such unrepentant gearheads)
I wanted to share with you the events from the snowshoeing/backpacking/snow camping trip to Mt. Rainier I took this past weekend.
I woke up at 6am to get ready to put some last minute things together before I headed out to meet the group. I turned on the news while I was dressing only to hear about this winter storm that has taken us a bit by surprise. Hmm, I wondered. Would this impact our route? I finished getting myself together and headed downstairs to fill up my bladder and grab a bite to eat to fuel myself (for those of you wondering a “bladder” is a bag you put in your backpack that holds water. It has a hose for drinking while you are hiking). It was 7:00 am and I had to get out the door, my bladder was almost full with 2 liters of water when …oops I dropped it and splash all over the floor. Dread! I grabbed every towel I could find and begin feverishly mopping up the floor and under the fridge while the cat’s thinking this is some kind of fun new game attacks my hands as I run them across the floor. I proceeded to clean it up shove a whole hard boiled egg in my mouth and scamper out the door.
We took two cars up to the mountain full of passengers. We’ll call my group the “A Team” and the other group the “B Team” because it makes me laugh. We got separated along the drive because the B team was following me and I really didn’t know where I was going. I took a last minute Mario Andretti turn off an exit labeled EXIT Mt. Rainier ! The B team, being the “B team” chooses not to drive like a NASCAR fan and missed the exit even though they were behind us.
We called the B team to let them know to meet up with us in a one horse town called Elbe just outside of Rainier where the Post office is also the Dr’s office, local saloon, barber shop and grocery store. Once we got there we had no cell phone reception so we hung around for 10 or so minutes then left because we never saw the B team. We headed on and figured we’d catch up with them at Paradise , the base area for the route we had planned out.
It was when we got out of our car at Paradise to go in to the visitors center to get our permits that the winter storm became real. I instantly wished I had brought my ski goggles the face mask I threw aside earlier thinking I wouldn’t need as the snow hit my face so hard I thought it was drawing blood. We quickly covered our faces with our jackets and ran for the door.
Because it felt like we were in the middle of the blizzard poor Rudolph endured looking for the island of misfit toys we opted to drive back down the mountain to the 4500 foot level and hike from Narada falls to Reflection lakes. Sounds great! We pack out and find parking at Narada. We get all of our gear out and on and head out for the trail to find that we have to ascend a 200 foot hill with a 25 degree slope (that’s steep not to mention avalanche material). Now to Plan C… We take off on the lower elevation in to the back country. It’s a killer as we try an easier way to get to the upper road that would take us to the lakes. It’s now 3pm and we had been climbing uphill through the forest without trail in deep stuff for quite some time. We are all tired and it’s going to get dark soon. We can see the road but it’s about 500 vertical feet above us. We are not going to make it by 4pm and still need a few hours to set up camp. I see a small clearing in the flocked 50foot trees and declare that to be “campable”.
We dropped our gear and began digging out for our tents. Ahhh, Tents up and the guys are constructing the kitchen which consists of a 3 ½ foot tall shelf so you can stand and cook. We eat, and hang out for a while because you can’t possibly go to bed at 6:45pm! We then boil water to put in our nalgene bottles for bed time. With my always cold hands and feet I’m ready to cuddle with my water bottle and say good night at 7pm. Everyone else followed suite.
Here’s where it gets good. I borrowed a zero degree bag because mine is only rated for 20. This was some new kind of bag where you slide your pad in the bag and that provides for your cushion and alleged warmth. Well, it was a nice idea but the cold went right through and I was freezing! I put on 3 pairs of pants, 2 undershirts, a wool sweater and my outer shell jacket, wool hat, scarf and ear warmers and cuddled my nalgene like it was a bottle. Anything you don’t want to freeze has to go in your bag with you so my boots were in a plastic bag at the bottom as was any remaining clothes I wasn’t wearing, my food and my bladder.
I lay awake most of the night conversing with God because he’s the only one who was awake to listen. At about 2:00am I felt something wet behind my head. What the heck! I feel around for my head lamp and turn it on to find the bite valve on my bladder popped off and I was lying in over a liter of water. D’oh! I quickly start pulling out all of my gear and throwing it about the tent, Oh No! My keys are lying in a puddle of water! I frantically unzip my bag only to have the zipper get caught in the lining and stick so it wouldn’t unzip. I reach for the lower zipper and unzip it from the bottom and scooch out from inside the bag. Because the Pad is inside the bottom pocket the bag was stiff as a board. I couldn’t just pool all the water to one end with gravity so I unzipped the tent and flung one end of the bag out shook the water out. I used the remaining shirt and socks I had to dry the bag and laid my waterproof rain jacket under myself. I put the wet clothes back in my bag to help dry and started looking for my keys. Hmm I know I threw them over here somewhere????? I looked in my bag, under it, around it all the while my tent buddy is sound asleep.
To no avail - I couldn’t find my keys but that gave me something else to pray about. My nalgene had cooled down to body temperature so it was no longer a help. Joanna, the girl who I shared a tent with had some foot warmers like the ones for your gloves. Finally at 3am I grabbed a package of Joanna’s foot warmers ripped them open and stuck them across my stomach. It only took about 10 minutes for them to warm my whole body and I was able to sleep for the first time. That is until 6:30am when I woke my self up from a bad dream. I laid there until 8am and decided everyone else needed to be up with me so I started the stoves and began boiling water.
People started getting up at that point and we ate breakfast, packed up our things and found an incredibly easy parallel line across an avalanche chute out that cut about 30 minutes off our hike out of the forest. Although a very treacherous route, I have to admit it was a little bit of an adrenaline rush.
All in all it was actually a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again. Lesson learned –use your own bag that you know and trust and bladders leak!
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