Mount Rainier DC Route (Single-Push)

Trip Report

Jeremy (fellow alpinist + friend) and I decided to climb Rainier car-to-car because we're idiots. And also because we didn't want to haul up a tent, sleeping kit, extra food, or literally anything else that makes mountaineering less tormenting...but mostly because we're idiots.

I got to Paradise at around 4:00 pm or so to grab a walk-up climbing permit. According to the kind ranger on the phone the day prior, they've not been running out of walk up permits - especially during the weekdays. After securing our golden ticket, I proceeded to fail at sleeping in my car for the next couple hours until Jeremy arrived. Our original plan was to start about 8:00 pm, get to Muir around midnight, and summit around 6-8 am. Instead, we caught up and talked nonsense for far too long as our daylight (and dignity) dwindled. We eventually got started around 10:00 pm.

We were greeted by a full moon on the way up to Muir, which lit up Adams, Saint Helens, and Rainier…all of which were looking down at us like plebeians. We got to Muir at about 1:35 am (3.5 hrs from start) and made friends with some strangers setting up for their alpine start like normal, reasonable, people. In the public shelter, Jeremy took a 20 minute power nap while I laid down and stared into the void, trying to recall what sleep feels like. We spent the next hour or so setting up gear, attempting #2s, and taking in the view.

It was about 3:00 am when we left Muir. The rangers had told us that the current route features a 25 ft snow bridge on Ingraham Flats, so our primary goal was to not die on it. We based our turnaround point on getting back to the downhill-side of that snow bridge before noon. Crossing the Ingraham Flats (and snow bridge) was pretty uneventful, but there was some new serac fall up above from the ice box. The ascension up DC is nearly snow free so please, for the love of all that is sacred, take off your crampons here...especially on the way down (we did not because we're silly geese, and silly geese don't shed their talons). Somewhere along the DC we ran into our Muir friends again and shared a couple laughs. It was here that one of them said "You guys really just raw dogged that plywood floor [in the public shelter]"

...Yes...Yes, we did.

We got to the top of DC at about 5:45 am (~8 hrs from start), still alive but possibly in a hallucinogenic state of mind due to our lack of sleep. At this point, the winds were pretty calm, which was unexpected because they were forecasted to be pushing 30 mph at the summit (a bit less at Muir).

There were quite a few open crevasses between DC and the summit. The guides had placed hand-lines and anchors in certain spots along the way. During our breaks, Jeremy would nap like a cat in a sunbeam, while I gnawed on a frozen power bar and contemplated my life choices.

About 2,000 ft from the summit, we started running into the guide groups coming down. They told us the winds continued to be pretty reasonable up at the summit. Besides the guided groups, there were probably about 5ish other climbing groups summiting that day.

There is also a false summit...which is pretty rude. Classic bait-and-switch.

We reached the summit at about 8:30 am (10.5 hrs from start), which was only half an hour behind our original planned summit time. We did not find the summit register (apparently it lives somewhere else now?) but we did take a 15 minute nap on the summit. And yes, I finally fell asleep!

We saw our Muir friends one last time, who were summiting right as we were leaving...I miss them.

The way down was warm...too warm. One could say, alarmingly warm for two goons who had just crossed a snow bridge of questionable integrity. Let alone the recent serac fall up above.

We stopped at the top of DC so that I could poop in a bag. From the cleaver looking down, you got a really nice view of the snow bridge, which looked even more precarious from that vantage point. Mother nature's booby trap. We caught up with another descending group at the snow bridge and played Russian Roulette: Glacier Edition. But somehow, all of us lived. I wouldn't be surprised if that bridge was gone, or replaced by a ladder, in the next few weeks. Either way, we crossed the bridge three minutes before our noon deadline.

We made it back down to Muir just before 1:00 pm (15 hrs from start), took a half-hour break, and then made our way down. By this point, the snow had all turned to mashed potatoes, so our dreams of glissading down the home-stretch were crushed. Along with our spirits.

We made it back down to the cars sometime around 3:00 pm (17 hrs from start) ...where I experienced the most transcendent nap of my entire life.

10/10 would recommend :)

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