The Bob Mountain Report

Mt Rainier from Paradise Rd, 5/15/08
Photo by © jdm_photo - Jeff McCrory

Bob spent the other day on the Southern flank of Mt. Rainier, near Paradise, learning how to slide down a mountain (and self-arrest with an ice ax). Here's his report:

Freezing level today was around 15,000 feet. At 5,000 feet, at Paradise, it was a scorcher. In the sixties somewhere and I wasn’t properly dressed. Ended up shedding my hat on the way up. Big mistake. Top of my head is tender to the touch, face and neck (liberally applied SPF 30 with zinc oxide) are bright red. Nice raccoon eyes. Gortex is good for sliding, but not for general wear. I’ll be shopping for better pants to wear up.

It felt good, however, to be up on the hill and practicing. I liked the notion of a steady measured pace heading up and down. Goes against my nature (evidenced by the knee episode) of just powering through, but does make the whole process seem more doable. Sliding down the hill was fun and doing the arrests was a great way to cool off, especially since I forgot to zip up the sides of my pants the first time town.

Two weeks and I go back up and see if I can learn how to pull Rob out of a crevasse (or be pulled out myself).

It's worth noting that in Vermont yesterday the freezing level was around 1500 feet (not 15,000 feet), with new snow on the hilltops....


It's also worth noting that this is today's view from Paradise:

Tomorrow: Training Climb Two

Tomorrow afternoon, JohntheClimbinggMentor and I are meeting at Vermont's Smuggler's Notch (basically a pass on the shoulder of Mount Mansfield) to do some more training: crampons, ice axes, and ropes. We're approaching from opposite sides of the Notch, climbing up the closed-in-winter part of the road (highlighted in yellow).



...If I'm going to stay on track with my training for the May 25th Vermont City Marathon, I also have to run 17 miles tomorrow.

Somehow.

Glissading down a snowfield with an ice axe in my hand sounds like more fun.

Training Climb One

Okay, I wouldn't exactly call it a "climb". Vermont's distinctive Camel's Hump is more of a hike. But we DID use ice axes on the way up and even, for a short stretch, crampons. Mostly we slogged along in snowshoes. But JohnTheClimbingMentor and I appeared to have the mountain to ourselves. It was a beautiful day, with hazy views from New York to New Hampshire. And a great opportunity to learn a few things about mountaineering stuff. Thanks John. And thanks heaps to Sarah for hanging out with Fergus and Norah so I could have this opportunity. When you add it all up, our debt to Sarah and Todd is enormous. Thanks.

ALMOST a New Tent...

I don't think I've ever bid on any eBay item before, but I ALMOST became the proud owner of a 4-season North Face tent the other evening ("no holes but no poles").

Unfortunately, I was out-bid at the last minute, as I slept, by my new nemesis, "Goretexsteve."

Sorry, you were outbid. This item sold to gortexsteve for US $198.25.

Damn You, Goretexsteve.

Clueless Shopping

Among my many deficits when it comes to climbing real mountains is a nearly complete lack of equipment. I have some nice, heavyweight Merrell boots (and they're in remarkably "like new!" condition) that I bought fifteen or twenty years ago, but JohnTheClimbingMentor says they are not really stiff enough to wear with crampons and, oh, I might end up with a touch of frostbite. And, as my brother-in-law will attest, my little tent (a state of the art lightweight tent in 1977) has such a foul smell that, when he borrowed it back in 2000, campers in adjoining campsites were making jokes about it.

This was in Michigan, where smell is no laughing matter.

And then there's the question of sunglasses.

From what JohnTheClimbingMentor says, spending time on a glacier at 14,000 feet without special mountaineering glasses is asking for a fine case of snow blindness. This is not always a good thing when you're walking around on icy inclines somewhere up in the jet stream, surrounded by bottomless crevasses.

In fact, the intensity of ultraviolet rays increases 5% for every 1,000 vertical feet of elevation gain. So, you know, I'm convinced.

So I get my eyes examined, by a real eye doctor, and I start shopping for "real" mountaineering glasses, ideally ones that I can later use when I'm, you know, turning the compost pile and stuff. So now I've narrowed it down to two fashion choices: the Denali and the Zermat.

The denali says: modern fellow, reads a little non-fiction, hopes to drive a Miata one day.

The Zermat (which sounds like the Swiss town of Zermatt, one of my father's most memorable ski destinations) says: retro fellow, James Joyce on the mountaintop, hopes to eat pemmican and whale blubber one day, prefers "Touching the Void" to "Into the Wild," uses archaic diction about modern subjects ("I brook no quarrel with Thom Yorke's approach to popular music"), hopes to own a vintage pickup truck one day.

Guess which one I'm leaning toward?

Because It’s There

Look, we've got a mountain to climb, but…

Bergschrund?

Serac?

On Belay?

I've got a lot to bloody learn.