Rough Itinerary

Here's a quick and dirty itinerary. The summit attempt will most like be made either Wednesday or Thursday. But Tuesday or Friday are also possibilities. A lot depends on the weather. Map images below can be seen larger by clicking on them.

• -(Rob Flies to Seattle Thursday 6/19)
• -Sunday afternoon (6/22): Drive to mountain, hike from White River Ranger Station (4400') to Glacier Basin (6,000').
• -Monday (6/23): rope up and climb the Inter Glacier from Glacier Basin, over the South side of Steamboat Prow (at 9,000'), drop down to the Emmons Glacier, climb to Camp Schurman (9,500'), where we'll spend the night Monday. Note that the Camp Curtis "campground" noted on the map is actually not much more than a rocky area on the southern ridge of Steamboat prow.
• -Tuesday (6/24): Climb a few hundred vertical feet to a spot on the glacier called Emmons Flats. This crude (and not very flat) location will be our base camp for the rest of the journey. Most likely we will spend Tuesday practicing rescue techniques, strategizing, and getting used to the altitude.
• -Summit attempt(s) will be up-and-back from Emmons flats, probably leaving camp at 1AM or 2AM. It will take an estimated 7-9 hours to reach the summit, 3-4 hours to descend back to camp. A LONG day.
• -One web site describes the route this way: "From Emmons Flats, ascend the glacier to "the Corridor," a prominent glacial feature that rises higher than the rest of the Emmons. Access the Corridor from 10,000 ft to 10,300 ft depending on the year. The Corridor tops out at 11,200 ft. At this point, the route becomes steeper (30 to 40 degrees) and will take a variety of directions depending on the year, glacier movement and snowfall. It is not uncommon to traverse over on the Winthrop and ascend its shoulder to the Bergschrund. This crevasse is the usually the highest on the mountain and may involve down climbing and belays to cross. Frequently it can be circumnavigated however there have been times when climbers traversed around to the Disappointment Clever route. Access the crater rim at 14,250 ft. It's a short southwesterly walk from here to the true summit and climber register."
  

The Mountain is Out (Again)

Click above image for (much) larger version (Flickr photo by Stephbu).

To have a look at the general view of our climbing route from Camp Schurman at Steamboat Prow to the summit, GO HERE and hold your mouse over the image to display landmarks.

Years ago (when The Kingdome still existed), Seattleite Bruce Barcott wrote an homage to Mount Rainier that tried to capture its mystique. I'm not sure that it does, completely, but it comes close (excerpt):

When it rises like a misshapen moon over downtown Seattle, the mountain entrances me, arrests my attention, and rouses my imagination; it makes me weave on wet highways.

On early mornings Rainier wakes above siesta-rate motels on Highway 99, above the waterfront's dromedary cranes and the grey dimple of the Kingdome, above the Space Needle and the Columbia Tower and Tokyo-bound 747s and everything that lives and everything that doesn't, as far as the eye can see. Rainier wakes higher than most of the air we breathe. The sight of it has nearly killed me. More than once its spell has been broken by the headlights of an oncoming car bearing down on my southbound self speeding along the northbound lane. The mountain never appears in the same place with the same face twice. It possesses a Cheshire talent for appearing and disappearing at will. From the highest hill it may lie shrouded in mist, only to show itself an hour later from the middle of Puget Sound. People who have lived in the Pacific Northwest all their lives still stop and stare when Rainier reveals itself. The moment crackles with the thrill of Nature being caught unaware, like seeing an eagle snatch a sockeye from the Sound. On clear winter days the Olympic and Cascade mountains flank the trough of Puget Sound like a fence of whitecapped waves. We've got mountains like Iowa's got flat. And yet the local vernacular admits only one "Mountain," and when Rainier rises we tell each other, "The Mountain is out." Mount Rainier is at once the most public symbol of the Pacific Northwest and its most sacred private icon. A friend once disclosed that she says a prayer whenever she sees it. A stranger I met on its high southern flank told me, "You must love this mountain as much as I do," but his reverent tone of voice told me I couldn't. Lou Whittaker, who has climbed Rainier more than one hundred fifty times, told me about returning home from a Himalayan expedition and catching sight of the mountain and feeling it snap his breath clean away.

Like rain and rivers and trees, the mountain is a continuous presence in our lives, but in our psychological landscape it occupies a place separate and greater than the forests and falling water. We look at Rainier and feel love for a mountain, if such a thing is possible. The mountain inspires in us a feeling akin to spiritual awe: reverence, adoration, humility. We look at Rainier and regard the vastness of God; yet we look at it and claim it as our own. This strange relationship we have with the mountain is romantic, uninformed, even presumptuous. Rainier is a mountain few of us know.

"The Mountain is Out," By Bruce Barcott (complete version)


[Flickr photo by mraaronmorris]

Coming Your Way, June 22

Special Thanks...

...to all of Bob and Michele's friends who have donated and/or sent us good vibes over the past few weeks:

Michael and Mary
Paul and Nancy
Shannon
Mike
Darlene
Lisa
Kelly
Karen
Laura
Adam
Jen D.
And probably some others!

You guys...rock. And, you know, you're really nice.

Our Story: Take One

Fergus is doing great these days.



The story of Fergus' diagnosis, treatment, and its reverberations through our life can be told a hundred different ways. Leukemia is so large, elephantine, that it's impossible to capture the whole thing from one angle. You have to come at it again and again from different angles, so you end up with something less like a narrative and more like a mosaic or pastiche, or like a cubist portrait.

When you put all the pieces together you get something that approaches our story, but still doesn't fully convey its essence. And even though some of our friends and family probably mumble under their breath, "Enough with the leukemia talk already," we're still trying to figure out what hit us on November 29, 2004 (Diagnosis Day), and how it has changed/is changing/will change our lives.

So here's one part of the mosaic, this time not even written by me or Lauren. It's a story published in our local paper last fall, written by one of its editors, Susan Allen (and thanks, Sue, for letting us re-post the text here). I'll try to come at this from different angles in the future, but this is a fine start:

Article published Sep 17, 2007
Leukemia hasn't daunted 7-year-old Fergus Ryan

By Susan Allen, Barre-Montpelier Times Argus editor

EAST MONTPELIER – Seven-year-old Fergus Ryan has pulled off the greatest magic trick of his young life.

After being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in December 2004, and spending more than two years undergoing chemotherapy, endless trips to Fletcher Allen Health Care, 18 spinal taps and 3,656 pills of one kind or another – he smiles, jokes and looks like any boy next door.

It's magical.

"Want to see a magic trick?" he asked last week, racing through the dining room of his family's East Montpelier home, hunting for a white gift wrap bow that's part of his act. The curly bow "magically" turns into a tight tied bow while the viewer's eyes are closed.

"Where'd you learn that trick?" he is asked.

"From Marko," he replies, referring to central Vermont's Marko the Magician who performed at Fergus' party to celebrate his last chemotherapy treatment on June 27, 2007. One of his anesthesiologists was also a magician, his mother Lauren notes.

Lauren Quinn, a veterinarian at Onion River Animal Hospital in Montpelier, recalls the ordeal of discovering that her son was facing a fight for his life.

The first signs appeared in October 2004, while attending a wedding outside Vermont when he experienced a fever and stomach pain. The third day, when the symptoms continued, she and husband Rob took Fergus to a pediatrician, who conducted blood tests and found everything normal except some anemia.

Back home in Vermont, Fergus continued to bounce from healthy and happy to complaining about pain and spiking an occasional fever. One day he began crawling because of pain in one leg; he toured the Montshire Museum that day in a stroller and experienced significant pain on the ride home.

Tests showed his white blood cell count normal, but Fergus' doctor advised Lauren to take the boy to a hematogolist (blood specialist) at Fletcher Allen Health Care about the anemia.

"I had a weird feeling about this," she recalled of that visit on Nov. 29, 2004.

The hematologist ran tests, then left the room to review X-rays and blood slides. He took a long time returning, and Lauren and Rob "assumed he was really busy being with sick kids."

"He came back and we knew right away … he said I really hate to tell you this …" The diagnosis was leukemia, Lauren said. "I remember feeling kind of cold. I just felt icy."

Lauren didn't cry for four days. Instead, she shifted into action, calling a doctor at Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston to talk about treatment options and going online to research the disease. That night she cuddled Fergus, thinking about how his life would change the following day when he was admitted for chemotherapy and officially became a "sick child."

"I thought, 'He's so healthy and normal. What if I just put him in the car and drive away?'" she recalled.

Fergus was diagnosed on Nov. 29, admitted for his first hospital stay on Nov. 30, and started chemotherapy on Dec. 1. That's been his life off and on until June 27 of this year, when he received his last treatment.

"The first time I cried was four days into it," Lauren said. The boy was anxious about the spinal taps and blood draws; he cried but held still throughout his medical ordeals. At the end of the one session, when he was allowed to choose a "prize" for himself, he instead picked a little pink doll to give to his 18-month-old sister Norah.

Lauren Quinn finally broke down.

The couple spent the next 2-1/2 years alternating work schedules, child care, and trips to the hospital (where they brought a lamp and quilts from his room at home to make him more comfortable during his stays). Friends brought meals to the family three nights a week.

Fergus remained healthy looking, but steroids that were part of the treatment wreaked havoc on his emotions. He'd laugh hysterically, then sob. He had food cravings – many kids in this situation crave salty junk food such as chips, but Fergus craved spaghetti and meatballs. His hair thinned and the curls grew coarser, but he didn't go bald, Lauren said.

The treatments were an ordeal.

"Fergus did get a port placed under his skin for all of his chemo," Lauren explained in an e-mail. "It was a central line down toward his heart. To access it, the skin was numbed and a needle was pushed through the skin into this little rubber diaphragm. Fergus dreaded port accesses for most of treatment, and needed a lot of help holding still. By the end he was a pro, and could sit nervously while the needle went in. He claimed he always felt it."

The couple found the experience "a huge challenge," but learned to communicate better and deal with the stress.

"We had to be more tender because we each grieved differently," Lauren said.

Every Sunday, she said, after Fergus had returned from a hospital stay, they'd put on fun music and the whole family would dance for half an hour just to reconnect and burn off the tension.

The family's health insurance covered most of the expenses, which Lauren said was a relief because many families have to fret about the bills during a child's illness, adding to their burden.

Lauren's brother who lives in Seattle wanted to help in some way, and began running in triathlons to raise money for the fight against childhood cancer. Lauren was inspired and she, too, began training for the 2006 Team in Training triathlon (visit www.teamintraining.org for information) in Memphis – and raised $21,000 toward the effort.

Lauren and Fergus took another important step forward in the fight against childhood cancer by traveling to Washington, D.C., in June to attend a national rally for federal funding for the fight against childhood cancer and passage of the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. Families came from across the country to tell their personal stories of cancer; they asked to meet with their congressional members of staffers.

Lauren and Fergus were the only two from Vermont – and they met personally with Rep. Peter Welch (whose wife died of cancer) and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who signed onto the cancer bill that very day. They also met with a Leahy staffer. Lauren learned last week that Welch and Leahy, too, signed onto the legislation.

Lauren said that in 1967, only 5 percent of children with leukemia survived; now 85 percent can survive. But that figure has leveled off and families are hoping to move research and survival rates forward.

Today Fergus is in long-term remission and doing well. Lauren and Rob worry about a relapse, and confess to occasionally stressing every time the boy – or even his sister – complains of leg pain.

"Every now and then something will happen and I'll get that feeling of being punched in the stomach," she said.

While the experience has been an ordeal, Lauren said there has been a positive side to Fergus' fight.

"It's enhanced our enjoyment of each other and our appreciation of the small daily pleasures," she said. "We will have these moments, the kids are laughing, and Rob and I find each other looking at each other and thinking, 'This is a great moment.'"

Recently she was sitting in the yard looking at the view and imagined Fergus walking up, home from college or his life away, and having a beer and sharing the view.

"I burst into tears because I so desperately want that to happen," she said. But, she reminded herself, "Nobody has that guarantee." Even for cancer-free families, life is a gamble.

"It's been an incredibly hard two years, but on the other hand it's been a delightfully wonderful life with our children for two-and-a-half years," Lauren said. "We've had a good time and we've really enjoyed each other, and we still do. We're more focused on the present."

Lauren said that recently Fergus was watching a video on cancer and looked away as the announcer talked about those who have died of the disease.

"Will I be a survivor?" he asked his mother.

She replied, "You already are."

I've Been Seeing This Shape...

Lately I feel like the Richard Dreyfuss character in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind":

"I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows...Dammit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important."

Except this is the shape I keep seeing:

Vermont Winter = Rainier Summer?

It's been a relatively mild winter here in Vermont, thought we're having a bit of a cold snap at the moment. It was three degrees (F) yesterday morning when I got up. Still, that's not all that cold for a morning in early February (in Vermont)--but cold enough.

The thing is, the wind was coming up, and by the time I got off the bus in Burlington the wind was gusting to 30 MPH. That brings a wind chill of about twenty degrees below zero.

It was a looong 12 minute walk to my office in that wind.

My face hurt. It just plain hurt.

The wind made me grimace, and I had to remind myself to pull my lips back over my teeth because they hurt too. And I worried, irrationally, that they would shatter into little bits, like safety glass.

Man.

I know it will be June when I'm up on Rainier, but doesn't it get weather like this? Even in June? I mean, doesn't it basically stick up into the jet stream?

All I can find right now is a current forecast for the Rainier summit…it says the low tonight on the summit will be minus 13, with 44 mile-an-hour winds. That's a wind chill of minus 50 degrees.

It's no walk to the office.

The Mountain is Out

I woke up today to someone shaking my foot, vigorously. And again.

What? What?

It's my wife, and she's whispering forcefully: "Get up."

It's 6AM. One of my days to stay home with the kids.

I stumble out of the bedroom and she's waiting for me in the hallway, an anxious look on her face. I think: what is it? A death in the family? Has one of the leukemia kids relapsed? Is our son okay? Or is it just something online about the presidential race?

In fact it has snowed overnight, the roads are not really plowed yet, and the car is stuck at the bottom of the hill. She could call AAA for a tow, but she thought I might want to give it a try. We live in Vermont, after all--we're not supposed to call AAA. A half hour later I'm home with the car, and Lauren has given up plans to go work out at the gym.

And at this point you're thinking: What does this have to do with climbing Mount Rainier?

Well, there are a lot of reasons I want to make this climb, but one of them has to do with childhood cancer.

And while our 8-year-old son completed his leukemia treatment (2-1/2 years worth) in June of 2007, even still we live with its threat. Its presence has woven itself into our lives. We wake up with it. It hangs over us like--well, like Mt. Rainier hangs over the Seattle area on those clear days when they say:

The mountain is out.

An early awakening, a look on a spouse's face, a boy with a fever, a phone call from our son's clinic--these little moments are filled with awful possibility.

I don't want to overdramatize, but I hope we (all) can get out from under this mountain some day. Until then, it's waiting to be climbed.