Why Choose Rainier?

It truly feels like I’ve had to navigate every single emotion since coming back from Washington. When I first got clean, I had to carry around a feelings wheel to figure out what was going on inside me and I honestly considered picking it back up after this trek. I spent the first few days back home crying as I rode the waves of adrenaline, joy, pride, overwhelm, gratitude – seemingly all at once.

We summitted Mount Rainier at 5:18 a.m on June 29th via the Disappointment Cleaver route and I’m excited to share more about the full experience, because even with a bit of mountaineering under our belts, we’re still technically beginners, and it felt like Shannon and I were marching into new territory.

Before we loaded into the van to start our trek, our International Mountain Guides (IMG) guides had us go around and share our “why”. Rainier feels like a strange pull for a girl at sea level, and I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it turned from a quiet curiosity (a picture on my vision board) to a full blown obsession (I was never good at operating in the grey). Maybe it started with the postcard I wrote to my dad in 1994, the one my mom found tucked away in a box last year:

Or maybe it was that moment after backpacking the Enchantments, when Sam and I made an unplanned stop at Mount Rainier National Park, and I looked her in the eye with confident delusion and told her I’d come back to climb it someday. Either way, I have text receipts from 2018 proclaiming my intent to summit and almost 6 years later I got to check it off the list.

Whatever it was, every time I flew into Seattle and caught a glimpse of her through the window, I felt the draw.

Mount Rainier stands at 14,411 feet and is the most glaciated peak in the lower 48. It’s also a stratovolcano – Sloane makes sure I don’t forget that part and reprimands me when I call it a mountain. I did a deep dive into the history and geology and pulled together some stats that I found interesting below

If you’re reading this because you’re thinking about climbing Mount Rainier, you’re a beginner mountaineer, or a woman ready to tackle your first glaciated peak, I’m super glad you’re here! Over the next few posts, I’ll be breaking down training (mental & physical!), gear lists, guides and outfitters, food, the full summit experience, and things I wish I had known going in.