[This Mountain Profile essay about Tahoma/Mt. Rainier originally appeared in Alpinist 88, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up Alpinist 88 for all the goodness!–Ed.]
![A storm approaches as Chris Weidner and Jeff Hashimoto climb Liberty Ridge in 1995. [Photo] Chris Weidner](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/weidner149892-r1-e005.jpg?resize=1200%2C803&ssl=1)
Three days after my fourteenth birthday I staggered to Mt. Rainier’s crater rim and collapsed. I couldn’t believe I’d made it that far. Sweat soaked my polypropylene shirt, buried beneath a long-sleeve wool layer that was too much of a hassle to remove while walking as a rope team.
My dad had begun the summit climb with us early that morning of August 31, 1988; it would be the debut and finale of his climbing career. He had made it to 12,500 feet—a respectable effort having come from sea level the day before—but he turned around, exhausted. Before we parted ways he handed me his father’s gold watch, which gleamed in the light of my clunky REI headlamp (powered by four C batteries in a pack connected to the lamp with a long cord). “Bury this at the summit, for your grandfather,” he told me.
I’d never met my grandfather. He died of a heart attack at fifty-six years old, long before I was born. It was the fate of all Weidner men, none of whom had lived to see their grandchildren, for many generations.
Phil Ershler, a guide for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. (RMI), led my rope team. He was a prolific high-altitude expedition climber who, four years earlier, had become the first American to summit Everest by its North Face. In my young eyes he was a demigod.
“Get up!” Ershler yelled at me as I lay in exactly the same position I’d collapsed in minutes earlier. “We’re going to the summit!”
“Aren’t we at the summit?” I asked sheepishly, as I watched others embrace and congratulate one another.
“The true summit is across the crater,” he said. “Let’s go!”
Though I carried my grandfather’s watch, I decided not to bury it. My strong desire to honor my dad’s request was overruled by my aversion to intentional littering, especially in a place as hallowed as I deemed this mountaintop.
The mountain’s changing conditions, technical terrain and unpredictable weather make it a far more serious objective than the Lower 48’s other “Fourteeners.” It’s no wonder Mt. Rainier has been an invaluable training ground for generations of mountaineers who plan to climb higher and harder.
Climbers like Ed Viesturs, the first American to climb all fourteen 8000-meter peaks, climbed extensively on Mt. Rainier. The mountain played an important role in the early careers of other famous alpinists such as Mark Twight, Conrad Anker, Willie Benegas, Melissa Arnot Reid, Willi Unsoeld, Lou and Jim Whittaker and countless others over the years.
For me, Mt. Rainier was both the training and the test. My second time to the summit was more than five years after my first, in January 1994. In the interim I’d climbed dozens of Cascade summits, some in winter, including my first new route: the ca. 1,200-foot north face of Mt. Kent. I’d taken a five-day winter climbing seminar on Mt. Rainier through RMI and, with them, had climbed to the summit ridge of Denali as soon as I’d graduated high school.
Despite my preparation, my friend Jack and I made several glaring errors when we climbed the Gibraltar Ledges that winter. Strong winds blew surface snow in such a fury that we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of us during the descent, forcing us to bivy. We had foolishly decided to “go light,” so we had no shelter, bivy sack, shovel or stove. For nearly ten hours we endured a terrible bivouac at 13,000 feet where we dared not close our eyes for long, fearing that we wouldn’t wake up. We were lucky to make it down alive.
By the time I climbed Mt. Rainier a fourth time, up the Emmons Glacier in 1997, I was the one leading a rope team as an apprentice guide. By the summer of 2000 I had logged eleven ascents to the true summit, most of them guiding.
But my most memorable, and indeed most life-changing, ascent of Mt. Rainier was my third, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, is also a survival story.
Eighteen months after my harrowing winter bivouac at 13,000 feet, my friend Jeff and I—then twenty-four and twenty years old—left Seattle to squeeze in an ascent of the classic Liberty Ridge before a predicted storm blew in.
On the afternoon of June 2, 1995, Jeff and I reached the trailhead. We packed, put on sunscreen and did a quick gear check. That’s when we realized we had forgotten the pump for our stove. So we drove two hours back to my apartment in Seattle, grabbed a pump, then drove another two hours back. By the time we started walking it was after 8 p.m., yet we savored the quiet hike under a clear, star-filled sky.
After a six-hour sleep we awoke at 5 a.m. in Glacier Basin to a crisp, cloudless day. The sun had just crested the horizon by the time we’d packed up and continued the approach over St. Elmo Pass. The soft morning light reflecting off the snow turned brighter, harsher, as we crossed the Winthrop and Carbon Glaciers to reach the base of Liberty Ridge. It was so warm that we had to posthole up 2,000 feet of steep, soft snow to reach our next camp at Thumb Rock, about halfway up the ridge. We’d gained 4,700 feet since morning.
By the evening of June 3, the storm we were trying to outrun was supposed to arrive in twenty-four hours—plenty of time for us to finish the climb and descend before it hit. We feasted on cookies, dried mango, Fig Newtons, bagels with cheese and smoked salmon, and pasta. I wrote in my journal, “Low cumulus abound, which don’t matter, but the cirrus clouds are forming.”
At 2 a.m. a light cloud layer obscured most of the stars. We soon left Thumb Rock unroped. A steep, ten-foot section of water ice provided an early challenge, followed by hundreds of feet of forty-five-degree snow. I switched off my headlamp and tuned in to the audible rhythm of kicking crampons and heavy breathing. Four hours into the day, still unroped, we had ascended most of the route. But as we gained elevation the clouds grew dark and thick, the wind picked up and it began to snow.
The storm had materialized half a day earlier than predicted. In retrospect, retreat may have been the best option, even from this high up. But at the time Jeff and I felt committed, like it would be easier to finish up and over the mountain.
Above the Black Pyramid, we roped up for running belays on steep snow and occasional water ice, placing pickets and ice screws along the way. My pants and turtleneck grew damp and I started to shiver. The snow fell harder, making it difficult to see where we were. I led us to a narrow, exposed ridge of rock and snow where we dug a spot for the tent at about 13,500 feet—just 600 feet below Liberty Cap, Mt. Rainier’s north summit. It was 9:30 a.m. The waiting had begun.
By five o’clock that evening we tried to sleep but were ready to leave whenever visibility returned. But heavy snow continued for hours throughout the night, confirming our fear of avalanche conditions. On the morning of June 5 we broke down the tent and packed up, but before we could leave our vulnerable perch, extreme wind, cold and blowing snow forced us to reestablish our camp. We had planned to be at the car the night before; I was certain our friends and families had begun to worry.
Snow blasted through the tent zippers as our nylon shell shuddered constantly in the terrifying wind. We shivered inside, huddled close. One oatmeal packet each would have to suffice. We had no idea how long we would have to wait so we had begun rationing food. By 6:30 p.m. we had been tent bound for more than thirty hours.
June 6 proved intensely frightening. At midnight a brief lull in the wind beckoned us to resume climbing through the storm. If we were going to get off the mountain we had to move whenever possible. We climbed steep ice with goggles, dim headlamps and unwieldy packs. Jeff led three pitches while I froze at the belay, moaning uncontrollably.
It took us more than five hours to navigate the remaining ice and snow to the summit of Liberty Cap, battling ferocious wind. On top, powerful gusts knocked us off our feet. Unable to walk safely, we set up our tent again, only this time we were even more exposed. The next twenty-four hours on Liberty Cap were full of fear and thoughts of my girlfriend, Julie.
After a few minutes inside we willed ourselves out again to build a snow wall. It helped for a little while, but then we were jolted awake by an awful roar—the strongest wind I’d ever experienced. Ninety minutes went by where it felt like the tent would either collapse or get blown away with us in it. Jeff and I propped our shovels against the inside of the tent, which seemed to help since one of the poles had broken. By now my journal had morphed into something of a goodbye letter: “I don’t want to die now Julie—I want to hold you again, warm and safe. I have never been more scared for my life.” I wondered: Would I be another Weidner male never to meet (or have, for that matter) a grandchild?
Meanwhile, our disappearance had made the news, in print and on TV. A huge rescue operation had been set in motion, with ground crews and a helicopter on standby for a lull in the storm.
Hours passed. Night came and went. At 5 a.m. the wind had decreased just enough to convince us to don our ice-caked clothes and pack up. Jeff had previously climbed the Emmons Glacier, our descent route, so he led us down through a whiteout. We didn’t get very far before the gale knocked us down again. We made camp and built a robust wall of snow blocks surrounding the tent. I shivered next to Jeff, but at least it finally seemed calm.
At this point we were overdue by two and a half days. To the horror of friends and family, local news organizations ran headlines about losing hope for the two men lost on Mt. Rainier. Unaware of the media, we still weren’t surprised to hear the thunderous propellers of a Chinook helicopter somewhere out there, searching for us. The sound buoyed our spirits—if the chopper was flying, the weather had to be clear below. With renewed energy we packed up quickly and stumbled downhill, skirting large crevasses. Soon, I became warm for the first time in three days.
What a hopeful, magical feeling it was to break through the freezing, hellish cloud and wind into a bright and benevolent world of brilliant sunshine. Jeff and I whooped with laughter and relief. We are going to live!