In the first week of May, I committed to climbing Mt. Rainier this summer. Next, it was time to get down to business: Training for the big climb. I was doing reasonably well as far as the weekend training hikes were concerned. But no technical climbs had been attempted, or even thought of, by Mid May.
That is when I started to think seriously about Mt. Hood. Like Rainier, but to a slightly lesser extent, climbing Mt. Hood had always been on my To Do list. At 11,249 ft. it is the tallest mountain in Oregon. Therefore, climbing Hood in itself was an interesting prospect and summiting it would be no mean feat I thought. Plus it was a technical climb, the experience of which would serve me well for Rainier. And needless to say, there was the incentive to gauge where I was with respect to my Rainier preparation.
The plan was finalized, a 2 day climb with Timberline Mountain Guides was booked for the weekend of May 18-19. On May 17, having the luxury of a day off from work that day, I walked into REI in the morning to buy all the gear that was missing from my kit. Which included the kit itself, shoes, woolen socks, crampons, base layers, fleece, puffy jacket, rain jacket, rain pants, gloves, mittens .... and the list goes on. About 6 hours after getting in, I walked out of REI with all the gear that was needed, feeling very light on my wallet (Another factor that makes mountain climbing a challenge. It requires a lot of time and money). That said, I was "all set" for the climb, and felt well prepared.
About the actual climb: The good thing was that I was able to summit :), return down safely, and the views we got during the climb were simply breathtaking.
Some of the pictures from the climb are here
The not so good thing was that the climb turned out to be *extremely* tough, and in a way, it was demoralizing. It was much much tougher than I had originally anticipated: Although known to be treacherous, the climb itself was less than 4000 ft., and did not require any snow camping. Statistically, I had originally thought, I should be able to do it without much discomfort given that I was already training on weekends. But I was wrong. There were a number of factors that I hadn't even thought of, which came to the forefront:
1. Hiking in the night is a completely different ball game
Alpine starts involve starting the climb by midnight, or very early in the morning. As much as one tries to get a few hours of sleep before the start, it usually doesn't work out for beginners because of the nervousness/anxiety/adrenaline. Besides, alpine start causes body clock to go haywire. Its the same feeling as feeling jet lagged. Climbing a mountain in that state, in extreme cold weather, with rain, snow, and wind is far from an enticing prospect (We'd started the climb at 1 am, I had an almost sleepless night before that, the temperature was 18 F when we started, with 20 mph winds, and freezing rain and snow).
2. Trivial things such as drinking water, using rest room, become problematic
Water bottles have to be typically kept wrapped up in a puffy jacket inside the back pack, so as to prevent the water from freezing. Because of the cold, it is a big overhead to remove gloves, open back pack, get the water out and drink. One typically hesitates to do that. And drinking less water means quicker dehydration and tiring faster. In general, no matter how good a back pack one has, it is very inconvenient to open the back pack (I had to open it at least 10 times during the whole climb) for water, snack, putting on additional gear etc.
About restrooms, firstly the mountain has no restrooms. Peeing becomes extremely inconvenient because as if the lack of dexterity caused by cold and wearing of gloves is not enough, there are the 3 layers of pants and a harness to take care of if one has to pee (Cold weather means frequent urination, and trying to fight the urge to urinate made things even harder for me :)).
3. Have to know very well how to use your gear
Buying all the right gear is one thing. But knowing how to use it is completely another. Learning how to wear a harness, or a helmet, and crampons, in the cold confines of the mountain is extremely challenging (I struggled to use my brand new gear from REI. I should have bought it much earlier and should have used it once or twice before using it on the climb).
4. You can't take your own sweet time to summit the mountain
In most of my hikes, I walk at my own pace without bothering how slow or fast my peers are going. Climbing on the mountain is different. You have to be precisely as fast as the others on your rope team (In my rope team, I was the slowest member and had a hard time keeping up pace with others on the team, tiring me out immensely).
5. Getting down is as difficult as, if not more difficult than, getting up
On the way up, one usually tends to go slow which inherently results in more caution. When coming down, in general, one tends to go faster because of which chances of slipping are quite high. Getting down therefore needs more control and more patience at a time when you're totally out of patience (After summiting, I was too tired and in a hurry to get down. In the haste, I slipped quite a few times (dangerously once), but was fortunate to escape unscathed).
6. Not using sunscreen when in snow is unforgivable
Throughout our climb, the weather was wet and cold with dense fog. So there wasn't any sun protection required, right? Mistake. Big mistake. I got badly sun burnt throughout the climb. That was a rude shock. My face was barely recognizable in the mirror that evening.
Thus went the climb. There were these lessons learnt but I remember thinking, as I was descending down, that there was no way I was going to be able to summit Rainier which was at least twice as difficult as Hood. Moreover, I thought I did not enjoy this technical mountain climbing experience. It was too strenuous. I kept asking myself why was I doing all this. Why was I wasting my energy, time, and money putting myself through all this, when I could have been sleeping comfortably in my bed over the weekend.
I had to seek answers to these questions and clear my self doubts if I had to harbor any hopes to summit Rainier. That was going to be the goal, and a P1 for me, in the next few weeks.
