[christensent]

Try 2 at summiting rainier. This one failed even more than the last (we never even left Schurman), but it was pretty fun. Left the cars at 3pm on Friday after a short day at work, and got to 8500ft on the Inter Glacier at 8pm.

Inter Glacier is starting to have lots of exposed ice

The weather was not looking good and it was starting to get late, so we decided to setup camp there instead of proceeding to Schurman. This turned out to be a very good decision! We dug platforms for tents, dug trenches in anticipation of the upcoming downpours, crawled into our tents and within a minute very heavy hail started. Water was boiled in one tent and thrown door to door in bottles to avoid having to walk the five feet over to the other tent. I actually ate much of my dinner with my headlamp off, because for most of the time the sky was illuminated by lightning more than 50% of the time, so it was kind of like a flickering overhead light. After dinner, heavy winds picked up, and both of our tents were completely flattened. The roof of my tent was squeezing me into the ground. "My tent keeps entering bivvy mode!" "Ours too! It's amazing it pops back up" So yes, the Fly Creek UL1 is a bomber shelter! So long as you don't care about bivvy mode, it ought to hold up to any wind.

Camp the next morning

The morning was almost entirely clear, and we were hopeful for a summit with an early evening start. We left our tents behind, roped up, and headed for Schurman. Upon arriving, the rangers said the previous night had been the most severe thunder storm they had ever observed in the state. With some extra time, we took a nap up there and rappelled into a crevasse for practice. Come about 3pm, the skies were looking very bad, and we realized a summit wouldn't be the best decision given the rapidly changing weather.

Weather was moving in from behind me

In fact, the clouds were getting bad so fast we didn't want to be on the Emmons so the other two in our group went under a tarp, and I put on my clothes and sat on a rock. There was only some light hail, and then that passed and we packed up and returned to camp.

No damage done, just flipped over and held by a single line

Both our tents had been ripped out by wind, and by unbelievable luck, both were held down by a single stake. I had apparently not closed the door under my fly, and my sleeping mat was half way out the door. Somehow, all I lost was the stuff sack to my tent. The second night was fairly calm weather, and we left the following morning.

Clouds moving up the Inter Glacier

Saturday sunset

[Jetlag]

That was a good bit of luck finding your tent undamaged with most of your equipment still present!! I have a UL2 and there were four more of them at Camp Muir two weeks ago. Lately when I leave the tent, I pack rocks in all the corners, stuffing them into my stuff sacks, crampon and harness containers to avoid damaging the lightweight tent fabric.

[n16ht5]

wow