I had been planning on taking a snow camping trip at Mt. Rainier National Park since early fall and was excited the opportunity finally presented itself with a group outing. The winter weather this year was so unpredictable in the Cascades I was relieved we had a few days of calm. The avalanche risk however, was still pretty high in many areas.
I woke up at 6am to get ready to put some last minute things together before I headed out to meet the group at our usual rendezvous location. I turned on the news while I was dressing only to hear about another winter storm that had taken our very reliable weather forecast by surprise overnight. Hmm… I wondered if this would this impact our planned route to Panorama Point? Hurrying along, I decided to use a new moisturizer with an SPF in it to prevent any sunburns from the suns reflection off the snow. I slathered it on well and continued to get dressed. It wasn’t before I had my left sock on that I felt the burning. Ouch! This great new $60 moisturizer with SPF 30 was burning my face. Wasn’t the whole point to prevent burns? I washed it off quickly but not before my face turned blotchy red. I finished getting myself together and headed downstairs to put some last minute things in my pack.
I needed to grab my previously prepared food and get water for the trip. I began to fill up my bladder from the water dispenser on the door of my fridge and grab a bite to eat to fuel myself (for those of you who don’t know a “bladder” is a bag you put in your backpack that holds water; It has a tube 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. Doh! I grabbed every towel I could find and begin feverishly mopping up the floor and under the fridge while my two kittens thinking it was some kind of fun new game attack my hands as I run them across the floor. Never mind them and the gashes in my hands, I was late! 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 race car driver 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 (I don’t think they even had LAN lines) so we hung around for 10 or so minutes then left because we never saw them. We headed on and figured we’d catch up with them at Paradise, the base area for the route we had planned out.
Apparently everyone else thought Paradise was a good idea this day because it took us about 30 minutes to find a parking spot. But it wasn’t until 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 and 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.
The good news was that the B team was cozy inside the center waiting for our arrival. The bad news was that they got the last parking permit for the day. Never mind our parking conundrum. Since it felt like we were in the middle of the same blizzard poor Rudolph endured trying to dodge the abominable snow beast, we opted to drive part way 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 can’t find the trail. We could ascend a 200 foot hill with a very steep slope but I don’t think anyone was feeling any love there at this point. Now to Plan C… We take off on a lower elevation route 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 some 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 time to set up camp. I see a small clearing in the flocked 50 foot trees and declare that to be “camp-able”.
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 7:15pm! I boil water to put in my nalgene bottle for bed time. With my always cold hands and feet I’m ready to cuddle with my water bottle and say good night at 7:45pm. Everyone else followed suite.
Here’s where it gets good. I borrowed a zero degree bag because mine at the time was only rated for 20. This was a different style of bag where you slide your pad in the bottom of the bag and that provides for your cushion and alleged warmth. Well, it was a nice idea but did the designer actually test it on snow? The cold went right through the pad. The bag and I were 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 should 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. Doh! 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. Then quickly start pulling out all of my gear and throwing it about the tent just as, Oh No! My keys with the keyless door opener are lying in a puddle of water!
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 Joanna, the girl sharing the tent is sound asleep. I start thinking Ashton Kusher was going to pop out anytime as I was certain I was being punked.
To no avail, no Ashton and no keys but that gave me something else to pray about. My nalgene had cooled down to body temperature so it was no longer help. Joanna, had some foot warmers like the ones for your gloves. Finally at 3:30am I grabbed a package of her 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 discreetly making as much noise as I could to wake everyone else up.
People did start getting up at that point and we ate breakfast, packed up our things (I found my keys) and found an incredibly easy parallel line across an avalanche shoot 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 watching little snowballs tumble down as we quietly crossed the shoot.
The great news was we made it out in one piece and it’s just down right glorious to be out enjoying such beautiful creation even when there are challenges.
All in all it was actually a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again with the exception that there’ll be a few minor adjustments in my gear. Lesson learned – use your own bag that you know and trust and bladders leak!