Friday, July 23rd
This is it… heading out to Mt. Rainier this morning. Orientation with RMI this afternoon, ascent this weekend. Looks like a full moon coming up, hope the night sky is clear when we make the final climb to the summit early Monday.
I went on my last conditioning climb this past Sunday; climbed Mt. Ellinor. It went great, and I got acquainted with mountain goats living up at the summit. Took a lot of pictures, put some of them on my facebook page (davidrbeshears).
Mt. Ellinor has a snow field that reminds me just a little of the snow field below Camp Muir. Good training.
I was planning to do some glissading back down, but another climber I met told me she had heard of people getting injured on Ellinor recently because of hidden rocks. So I put away my outer layer and started hiking down. I began slipping and plopped onto my butt, began an involuntary glissade. Trying not to glissade is much harder than glissading. I wasn’t wearing my outer layer and since I didn’t want to get soaked, I tried to stop myself. My legs went under me and I was holding my trekking poles for hiking, not glissading. I grabbed at some bushes going by and managed to come to a stop before things got out of hand. Still, good thing I’m going to be trained for this tomorrow, eh?
When I got back down to the trailhead, I felt exhilarated. Great hike, had a wonderful time. I am really looking forward to Rainier.
No comments:
Post a Comment