Miles: 10 miles RT
Elevation Gain/Highest: 4168ft/8640ft
Map: Green Trails Mount Rainier Wonderland No 269S, Caltopo
Favorite Eats After Hike: Farelli’s Wood Fire Grill, Alpine Inn, or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.
Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace. Pretty please.
My hike:
7/14/2018 This was a scramble with the Everett Mountaineers that I helped lead and the closest I have stood to the summit of Mount Rainier. I, truthfully, have spent little time in the national park aside from walking around the mountain on the Wonderland Trail and I am working to remedy that.
We started out at the White River campground which brought back memories of seeking refuge in the bathrooms after hiking down from Indian Bar in the rain and knowing I still had a few miles to go before reaching Sunrise for a 14 mile day. Today was much warmer and drier and I was thankful that we would have views to marvel at the summit.
There was a line at the gate when we drove up at 8am and the parking lot at the campground was almost full when we pulled in. Climbers and campers everywhere enjoying public lands! We were geared up and walking up the Glacier Basin trail about 8:45am which runs an easy grade of about 3.5 miles and 1,670ft gain on an old mining road. We had a few glimpses of our destination nestled next to Mount Rainier as we made our way through the forest next to White River.
When we arrived at the Glacier Basin Campground, everyone switched to water crossing shoes and made their down an obvious boot path to the river just passed the last campsite and a sign that indicates the end of maintained trail. What wasn’t so obvious was where to cross but we ended up wading in pretty much at that boot path.
On the other side, we swapped back to boots, added gaiters and followed another faint trail through sparse trees straight across from where we came down. (I would add here that upon our return, there was a more defined boot path up the river a bit from where we went in that I would take next time and probably goes all the way to the summit.)
There wasn’t as much snow as we anticipated, so we maneuvered rock and stream to the south, passing rusty old mining equipment about 6,000ft and hopped onto a snow covered stream of melted snow, staying close to the edges to avoid postholing. To avoid trampling vegetation at this late point in the season, it’s best to use the boot path whenever possible.
Our tack brought us up a bit higher on the ridge than expected, mostly because there was so little snow and we wanted to stay on it. It was about 4.25 miles into our trip and 7,000ft and almost 4 hours into the trip already when we hit snow just around a cliff band and begun our ascent along the moraine of the Emmons Glacier.
From here, we slowly made out way between snow fields and a rocky, loose soil boot path that lead to the summit. Soon the Inter Glacier was on our right, as well. The views expanded as Rainier grew into focus behind the tip of Mount Ruth with Steamboat Prow standing behind her. Folks took turns leading the kick steps parade as there was only one other group ahead of us and they stuck to the rock as much as possible. And even where they had been on the snow, the sun was so intense their steps had long melted away to be of any use by the time we came along.
We reached the summit at 2:15pm and couldn’t have asked for a more perfect climb. There was just enough wind to fend off the heat but not enough to warrant putting on a jacket. Everyone enjoyed lunch and plenty of pictures were taken. I took stock of the peaks around us: Glacier Peak, Little Tahoma, Goat Island, and many more. I remembered walking up to Second Burroughs the first night of my Wonderland hike to enjoy dinner and fight off thieving chipmunks. We watched the climbers heading up and down from Camp Shurman like little ants, so many out for the weekend.
After a 45 minute rest and obligatory summit selfie, we made our way back down from the mountain. We were able to do two long glissades but most of our trek was on rock. Even some of the snow fields we had come up on at the beginning had melted too much to support weight.
Our journey was made a little slower due to a tweaked knee but everyone kept a relatively good pace despite all the loose scree. We were back down to the White River about 6pm and to the cars at 7pm, later than anticipated but thankful for a beautiful time outdoors.
Directions: This scramble is located in Mount Rainier National Park, visit their website for more information such as directions, current conditions and entrance fees.
For more hikes near here, check out my Mount Rainier-White Pass page.
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