Most readers probably took little notice of the small news item in the daily papers in July, but I did for two reasons. First, it was a story about a massive mountain of which I am somewhat familiar, 16,000+ ft. Mount Rainier in Washington State, and secondly, it was an altogether familiar topic… another tragic death of a climber. But this time it really caught my attention; it was a very accomplished young scientist who grew up in Maine.

I have paid keen attention to these almost annual stories since ’91 when I and three friends made our attempt at summiting this classic glaciated volcanic peak. Memories always rush back, especially if the story indicates the same route to the top that we took.

Our climb didn’t involve a tragic fall into a crevasse, or a fatal slide down a glacier… yet the possibility of such was a constant companion with every step. Here is our story, which comes back with each tragic news report from that mountain:

I guess I was the main catalyst in pulling together three good friends to join me on this climb. The clock was ticking; we were all about 45 years old. “1991 was the year,” I said. “We aren’t getting any younger,” I also said. Being profound was clearly not the strength of my argument. The four of us decided to climb that mountain because of a sense of adventure, a sense of camaraderie, and certainly a sense of “if you can climb that monster, so can I.” A bit of competitive spirit always helps when common sense may be in short supply. (We did have enough sense to train hard, and to enlist the expert guiding of Rainier Mountaineering Inc. led by Lou Whittaker, famous for his expert mountaineering skills, and for being the twin brother of Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1963). After all, this mountain was famous for its avalanches which had buried countless climbers, and its many crevasses, that have been known to swallow up a good number of climbers as well.

Perhaps then, you can appreciate the nervous excitement as we all met mid-August in the Seattle airport, rented a car, loaded it with our packs and other gear and headed east to the Cascade Mountains in our rental car. It was a clear summer day in the Pacific Northwest, and within minutes as we rounded a curve, the tall hemlock and red cedar forest opened up and we came face to face with Mount Rainier…still about 50 miles away, yet seemingly filling the front windshield with its massiveness. As I recall, “Holy _ _ _ _!” was among the comments from the back seat.

The next two days were packed with activities… a couple of hikes up nearby mountains to hopefully “force feed” our lungs with the capacity to handle the thinner air, organizing and packing our gear and food, and graduating from the mountaineering skills school ran by the RMI guides. They were adamant that you pass the test, held on the snowfields above Paradise Lodge, before being allowed to attempt the summit. Nobody questioned the rationale for knowing how to stop yourself with an ice axe while sliding down the mountain on an ice sheet or in the direction of a crevasse. Similarly, knowing the art and science of being an asset, and not a liability, while part of a “rope team,” wearing crampons and other specialized gear. It all seemed to be worthy skills and information… as was learning the “Whittaker Wheeze” and the “rest step” …two little tricks that were going to prove invaluable as we dragged our very tired bodies toward the summit.

The “Whittaker Wheeze” is the mountaineer’s term for what health professionals, and patients with lung disease, would call “pursed lip breathing.” If you purse your lips when exhaling, thus providing some resistance to the breath, it keeps the little sacs in the lungs inflated longer, allowing more time for oxygen to make it into the tiny blood vessels in the lung tissue. The “rest step” is a very quick locking of the knee when bearing weight on that leg, thus giving the hard working thigh muscles a very brief rest with each step. Doesn’t sound like they would be of much help, do they? Multiply the small benefits by what seemed like a zillion uphill steps, and it made all the difference in the world.

The night at Camp Muir, situated on a rocky outcropping at 10,000 feet was memorable for its misery. Two dozen guys fitfully trying to get some sleep in a 20’ by 20’ stone hut, lying on concentration camp-like shelves, while battling an intense altitude-induced headache, listening to a half-dozen world-class snorers, while at least one person at all times was crawling over others and down the shelves in the dark to go outside to relieve himself in the frigid mountain air. All of this while waiting for the word at 1 a.m. to get geared up and into our rope teams for the beginning of the summit assault! I guess you had to be there to fully appreciate the moment… that is, the very long moments that became hours of marginal, yet much needed, rest.

The point of the early start was to reach the summit shortly after dawn following about 8 hours of climbing, and get down off the glaciers before the afternoon sun loosens up the ice and starts an avalanche along our route. Hard to argue with that reasoning. The headlamplit climb began across the first icefield, right where I watched a rockslide rumble down the mountain the previous evening. Altitude, exertion, and anxiety insured a pretty good heart rate for the next 15 hours or so.

I won’t go into the details of describing how exhausting, and intermittently difficult, the climb in the dark actually was. Suffice to say, when the pre-dawn light began to illuminate the Cascade mountains below us in a wide range of purple and orange hues, all I could do was say to myself “that would be a great photograph.” I didn’t have the energy, or the time on my ever-advancing rope team, to dig out the small camera in a vest pocket and get the shot. Those who know my love for photography will therefore understand the degree of exhaustion I was experiencing.

I feel compelled to mention that most of the other climbers on the 5 or 6 rope teams were much younger than us, and by some of their comments, quite ready to nail this summit in short order. A half dozen of them turned back at 12,500 feet, the last point where turning back was allowed. This gave us an extra measure of satisfaction when we finally reached the rim of the crater at the summit. It was a clear, extremely cold day at that cratered summit. We could see all the way past Mount Hood to Mount Jefferson in central Oregon to the south, and to Glacier Peak, another old volcanic cone on the Canadian border to the north. The entire Pacific Northwest lay below us. Spectacular… and unforgettable!

As you may have guessed, we made it down without being swept off the mountain in an avalanche, and without falling into one of the crevasses interrupting the route. The midday sun was surely softening the ice and snow, and it was certainly a relief to get down past the ominously, and aptly, named rock formations of Cadaver Gap and Disappointment Cleaver without having a deafening mass of boulders and ice put us on a “fast track” descent.

That evening, as we drove down the national park road obsessed with thoughts of collapsing into our sleeping bags for a few self-satisfied, and well-earned, hours of sleep we spotted a phone booth (this was the pre-cell phone era). Calls most certainly had to be made to inform our spouses that we somehow had emerged unscathed from this most recent adventure. Ken, the other Mainer on our four-man “band of brothers” team, took the first turn. After he finally hung up the phone, I began the formidable task of extracting my aching body from the car and slowly moving toward the roadside booth. As I approached Ken in what seemed like a curious slow-motion “telephone tag team” event, I asked “Well, what’s the news from home?” His reply was memorable… “Oh, not much except that a hurricane is bearing down on the Maine coast and the Soviet Union just collapsed.” That sentence quickly put everything back into proper perspective. So much for feeling that we were the center of the universe, having just accomplished our wild and wonderful goal of standing at the top of Mount Rainier.

“We need to write, otherwise nobody will know who we are,” Garrison Keillor.

Per usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Jot them down inside the front cover of a first edition copy of the classic mountaineering text “Freedom of the Hills,” and slip it inside the log door of our mudroom on the west shore of Gull Pond, or simply fire off an email to allenwicken@yahoo.com.