5-day Mt. Rainier (4,392m) summit via the Emmons-Winthrop Glacier Route, Cascade Range

We meet at 7 am for a manda­to­ry ori­en­ta­tion meet­ing and equip­ment check. The dri­ve from Seat­tle to the trail­head at White Riv­er Camp­ground (4,350 ft / 1326 m) is approx­i­mate­ly 3 hours. After final­iz­ing our per­mit­ting with Mt. Rainier Nation­al Park and secur­ing your annu­al climb­ing pass­es ($30/​pp), we’ll hit the trail — this is a mel­low 3 mile / 4.8 kilo­me­ter hike and the short­er day allows time to begin some skills review or just relax a bit. We’ll camp at the Glac­i­er Basin group site at 5,900 feet / 17998 meters.

Today we’ll hike out of Glac­i­er Basin and have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue with any skills review and assess­ment on the slopes above camp. We’ll then ascend steeply out of Glac­i­er Basin up the Inter Glac­i­er, tra­verse east, and then drop down onto the bro­ken Emmons Glac­i­er at 8,800 feet / 2682 meters, reach­ing Camp Schur­man at 9,460 feet / 2883 meters at the upper apex of Steam­boat Prow. This is all rope-team trav­el once on the Inter and Emmons Glac­i­ers. A per­ma­nent NPS ranger hut is locat­ed at Schur­man pro­vid­ing the lat­est on route and trav­el conditions.

These are our sum­mit days. Expect a depar­ture between 2 and 3 am The low­er sec­tion of the route can be quite bro­ken by big crevass­es until the fea­ture call the ​“Cor­ri­dor” is reached. This rel­a­tive­ly unbro­ken sec­tion is between 10,300 feet / 3139 meters and 11,300 feet / 3444 meters. Above this point, the route changes year to year and is dic­tat­ed by crevass­es and slope angle. Usu­al­ly a large Bergschrund 1,000 feet / 305 meters or so below the sum­mit area demands some belay­ing as we cross snow bridges; or it requires a route change tra­vers­ing around to the west. Colum­bia Crest, Rainier’s true sum­mit, is locat­ed 15 min­utes from the crater rim. Descent is made by retrac­ing the route up. Expect times between 7 – 9 hours up and 4 – 5 down. After the sum­mit climb, we’ll be able to spend one more night at Camp Schur­man, leav­ing an entire day for our descent to the trail­head and dri­ve back to Seattle.