penny for a thought | Patrick on every & anything

I am back in Portland now and excited to announce that I, along with three friends, successfully climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier. I won’t pretend it was easy, because it wasn’t. In fact, out of my three successful summits this was by far the most difficult. Maybe it was the blistering sun coupled with a sub-zero degree wind chill, or dehydration, or the extended route as a result of uncrossable crevasses. Either way the climb was brutal, but once at the summit the physical and mental anguish proved to be worth the accomplishment and spectacular view yesterday morning greeted us with.

To make a long and delusional story short, here’s how we climbed Mount Rainier:

• Brad and I left Portland Thursday night and met Kyle and Brian (two pals from Ohio) at Rainier’s Cougar Campground (think large feline, not older woman looking for a young stud).

• We woke up at 7:00AM, packed our bags, ate some breakfast, purchased climbing permits and began our ascent up to Camp Muir (aka. base camp)



• Once at Camp Muir we boiled snow for water, ate as much food as we could, then retired for a three hour nap.

• At 10:30PM on Friday night we awoke from our naps, ate more food, drank some java, roped-up and began our ascent to 14,100 feet above sea level. Then, seven grueling hours later we made it to the summit where we burrowed into an ice cave for warmth.

• Finally, we descended for 3 hours back to Camp Muir, packed our things, then descended for another 3-4 hours down to our vehicles at Paradise. Paradise is the name of the starting point, though it felt like actual paradise when we arrived.

• Lastly, we left Rainier National park and drove to Seattle, where we bummed around for a while, slept, then acted like tourists.

I have already posted many pictures to my Flickr page and will have even more coming soon.

The End…Thanks for listening…Ciao!