HST Muir Conditioning

The HST had an eventful training climb to Muir this weekend. We started out from Paradise around 10AM in the morning on Sunday, under cloudy skies and great climbing temperatures. It was an eye opening trip for many of our team as this was the first time they had been on a mountain of Rainier's class. The team made amazing progress at 1000-1400 feet per hour, much faster than we initially planned for. These Warriors continued to display that, despite personal injury, they can overcome anything. They also became very familiar with their partners feet as well as the beautiful scenery as we slowly worked our way up the Muir snowfield. We reached a cold and bitter Muir that afternoon, where we enjoyed some cold lunch, tested out some of our new "snivel gear," and refilled our water. We headed down after about an hour, and, much to our relief, we were able to glissade from just below Muir to just below Panoramic point due to both the conditions as well as some much worn glissade trails from previous climbers. Unfortunately, just below Panoramic point, one of our climbers was injured while glissading, and we were unable to move him down the mountain due to his limited mobility. After checking out a few routes down, we decided to enlist the help of the park's climbing rangers in getting our guy down.  Glenn the rest of his climbing ranger team, continued to display their absolute professionalism and skill in moving our climber back down to Paradise. Its always an awesome experience to operate with them.

All in all it was a critical day on the mountain. Our climbers proved to themselves that they can overcome the challenges that  both their injuries and mother nature throw at them. They also received a key lesson in how Rainier can go from being beautiful to dangerous in an instant. I was proud of how well our team-mates reacted under pressure, both physical and mental. They are definitely a strong group ready for further challenges on the mountain. I'm proud to climb alongside them.

Enjoy some pictures from the trip:

Break time

Moving up

Glissade

Almost to Muir

Glissade on the Muir Snowfield

Mike's up!

Trail

Moving strong