Mt Rainier, Camp Muir.

Our full day at Mount Rainier started with a lot of cloud. Olivia had to do her junior ranger program and so her and Shannon had to knock off a hike to the waterfalls. As they disappeared into the mist, I headed off on my own adventure.
Camp Muir is positioned at 10,188 feet up Mt Rainier (14,411 feet) and is the mid way camp for a summit attempt. To get there doesn't require ropes, axes or crampons, but is a fairly serious walk through snow and there are no fixed trails past a certain point.
I didn't even know the height of the walk until I found a ranger part why up and found out that it was about 4700 vertical feet.

From what I could see of the meadows, they looked nice. I kept a good pace as I knew it would be a long day. Apparently it takes the average climber with a climbing pack about 4 - 6 hours to get up, with the majority being over 5. I had a light pack and so was aiming for sub 4.

As I got higher, the snow became a more serious issue and I was only in light wait Gortex shoes and had no gators. On top of that, my hiking poles had no snow "thingies" on them to stop them sinking in too deep.

There were only a few bits where a slip would be really dangerous. Lets you know that you are on somewhat of a real mountain. There were also some warning signs to discourage non-experienced climbers from heading up further than the marked trails.

I passed some people hauling some heavy packs, ready for trying for the summit the next day or the day after. I stopped and chatted with them for a while found out about what they were doing. Also some of them knew about climbing and one of them had spent a lot of time in Yosemite when he was younger and so was pretty impressed with me having done the Nose of El Cap.

After this point, the rocky trails disappear and to the left of the picture below, the Muir Snowfield starts. 2800 vertical feet of snow, with barely any reference except the vague shadow of some rocky outcrops through the clouds.

Before the cloud really set in, there was a fair bit of visibility and some people can be seen coming down in the middle of the below picture.

Se how the pole digs in when you don't have a snow "thingie" on it.

There were a few rocky outcrops to see through the cloud when it wasn't so thick. There were also a few different tracks either set by people climbing up or people sliding / walking down.

Mostly though, this is what it looked like for about 2 hours of the climb while. As the song says "There's no sun shining through".

Then the sun started shining through and I used my magic selfie stick to get a couple of picks closer to the top.

I met some people who had gone for the summit, and some of them had had to turn back due to issues. All in all, it seems that people with no previous rope or ice experience can be guided to the top, but like any mountain, weather always plays a part.

The left group are heading up for some training, while the right group are heading back to camp Muir.

On the way down, I started getting a view of the lower stuff. Down was much faster as I was running / shoe skiing down most of it. 3:24 up and about an hour down, including talking to people for chunks of time.

This was a funny guy that I met. He wasn't at all scared of peple and just walked around chomping on stuff. It was a marmot and is about 40cm from head to the start of his tail.

There are a bunch of hiking trails from Paradise - the main town for Rainier - and it would be easy to spend a few days there.

Getting out there a bit

Parked near Mount McKinley national park, I felt like going for a walk while Shannon and Olivia headed off to check out the river.
I was keen to go for a hike and I saw a small rocky peak up behind where we were camped. I wasn't sure if there was a track up there but took a gamble.

 I found a track and headed up it. After a while I started to get some altitude and a better view of the town and the river.

 

When I finally reached the peak half an hour later, it was about 250m above the RV park. The track was obvious but I didn't see any other people.

I climbed up a small crack of rock about 5m high and when I topped out, I heard the tell tail signs of an upset squirrel. 

The big mountains were still in the clouds so I couldn't see much of McKinley.

The ridge continued on over a couple more peaks as it would its way up to the high point a ways back. I was trying to decide if I would go right to the top of the ridge where it joined with another one that looked like a possible way down. It was a bit of a risk, not knowing if I could get back that way but it looked likely and if I couldn't, I could always come all the way back.

The parallel ridge also had some nice looking crags on it. All of the rock was of pretty crap of course because it was often loose and brittle.

Up at the top of the ridge, I could have followed it up higher to the proper peak but it might have added 2 hours to my journey. It was tempting to jog but the experts say never to run through bear country, lest they figure you for a chunk of meat. There would be a great hike that goes right around the distant ridge but that is a bit larger undertaking, especially with some weather around.

 Below, I could see my two options of descent. I decided to take the one on the right.

 It was definitely less of a trail but it looked like the trail resumed down lower. Hopefully.

 Along with a big eagle that was too far away to get a good photo of, I met up with what I think was a marmot. I got some good video of him too. He wasn't too scared of me, but did back up a little at first. Probably because my loud clapping scared him. I was trying my best not to have a close encounter with a grizzly and so made a lot of noise and kept out of the trees as much as possible.

Looking back up the ridge was nice. I tried to stay out of the bushes so I could see bears coming if there was any. So far so good.

  

Up to this point it looked good for just following the ridge down the whole way although the small track was now lost again.

 

I soon realised that the ridge was heading down in the wrong direction. I remembered that there is a large cutting where it joins the road about 50m high. I was going to have to take a more direct route towards civilization.

The forest looked pretty thick. In that direction and it was still a fair way to go.

 I couldn't hear any bears but I was making a lot of noise. At times, I followed what might have been moose or Dall sheep tracks. Often they faded out back into scrub that I had to break my way through. 

 Even though they have bears, at least there are no real snakes or spiders. Some of the branches were gnawed at by something and occasionally I could smell something musky.
I decided to head down towards the creek and follow that out but there was some pretty thick stuff on the way.

 When I reached the creek, it was still partly filled with old snow. After a while, the partial animal tracks turned into something that looked obviously human.

 When I reached the bottom, I looked back hat where I had come from. I had gone up to the right of picture and traveled as far as the furthest back point and then back along the ridge to the center

I would love to do a heap more big walks out this way. You could just put on a pack with some overnight gear and keep going.