El Salvador isn’t exactly on the tourist circuit, so when I started searching for information on hiking the Santa Ana volcano, I found very little. There are a few blogs out there that have some details, but not as much as I was looking for. I’m going to try to remedy that here. It’s a long post…
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Yeah OK, so I steal Irving Stone book titles for my blog. And I can’t promise I won’t use any more. But if you ever see me title a blog with “Clarence Darrow for the Defense”, you’ll know I’ve run out of ideas. Climbing Mt Rainier is by far the hardest physical and mental challenge…
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Since we’re on the topic of climbing mountains, now seems like a good time to share my hike up Mt St Helens with you! Back in 2011, Amy (who I climbed Kilimanjaro with) and I did our first big climb together. Little did we know what we would later go on to accomplish. I’m pretty sure…
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I’m just starting to doze off when suddenly the lights come on and Dave cheerful tells us it’s time to get up and get ready for the summit! He even gave us an extra 15 minutes to sleep, it’s 11:15pm! We have one hour to get ready, hot water is being brought in for coffee…
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Much to my relief, our third day of the climb dawns cloudier and cooler than yesterday. After my ordeal last night, I couldn’t be any more grateful. I wake up still feeling weak, and I’m wondering if I’ll even be able to make it to Camp Muir, let alone anywhere on the upper mountain. But…
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Before I get into mountaineer school today, I should probably tell you a bit more about this climb. The program Lori and I signed up for is the four day summit climb through Rainier Mountaineering Inc. RMI is the original guiding service on Mt Rainier, and they have an excellent reputation. There are two other…
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Before I get in to the details of my climb of Mt Rainier, I won’t keep you in suspense of how I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the summit. Words can’t even describe my disappointment at not succeeding a second time, however I did get to 12,300ft, the top of the Disappointment Cleaver…
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Those of you who know me, probably know I did a summit attempt of Mt Rainier back in 2009. For many reasons, including not knowing that I had (and still have) exercise induced asthma, I made it to 11,200 ft, the Ingraham Flats, before I had to turn around. I have since gone on to…
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10:30pm. It’s dark. It’s cold. Fortunately there’s little wind. Amy and I crawl out of our warm sleeping bags. We get ready in our tent by headlamp. We slept in most of our clothes so we only need to add our top layers. After a quick bite to eat and some hot coffee, we’re ready to…
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Today we tackle the Barranco Wall! This is the Barranco Wall. It’s nearly 1000 ft of almost straight up climbing. More of a scramble than hiking, requiring us to use our hands to get over several obstacles. It’s one of the most challenging parts of the climb, besides summit night, especially since I agreed to…
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It’s day 4 of our 8 day climb. Today we head up to the Lava Tower at 15,200ft for an acclimatization hike, before heading down to Barranco Camp to spend the night. We’re up early to get a head start on everyone else headed this way today (as this is where the Lemosho Route meets…
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This is a pretty easy day for us. We cross the relatively flat Shira Plateau, gaining only about 1000 ft, most of it at the end. With views like this, how can you not start the day in good spirits? At one of our breaks, I take pictures of Amy and our guides. They are such…
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