Camp Schurman

So, Kyle and I set off to do some training work at Camp Muir--where I am going to be spending the first night of my Mount Rainier Climb on Aug 3rd. But the road was closed, so we headed over to the other base-camp, Camp Schurman. The approach hike was beautiful, but when we got to the snow, we found that my crampons weren't working out so well (better to find this out before the climb)!! So we did some self-arrest practice on the icy slope and then we climbed the ridge to the right. Only to reach the top at sunset and the the most breathtaking image of my life. The sun setting over the mountains in the distance and the enormous mountain to our left full of open crevasses, glimmering in the last bits of sunshine. It was truly, spectacular!! At close to 8,000 feet it was as if we could touch the summit. We headed back down in the dark wth our headlamps with a field of stars above our heads, Mars in the distance over the mountain, and the shadow of the mountain over us. If all goes well, in less than two weeks I will have successfully completed the journey to the summit with pray flags full of names and thoughts and prayers for families that have been touched by breast cancer. One step closer to finding a cure...

These are a few of my favorite photos from the climb, you can see the rest by clicking on the link on the map at the bottom of the page.

Here is a map of where we were and where I'll be staying the first night of the climb! The red box in the bottom right of the map is where we will be staying the first night and the purple box in the top right of the map is where we were last night.