Accepting Vulnerability: My Near-Death Experience on Mount Rainier
In writing this I took a few creative liberties for the sake of brevity and clarity, but otherwise the below is as close to reality as I can remember.
. . .
When my three-person climbing team set foot on the summit of Mount Rainier at 14,411 feet in August 2016, with the early morning skies spread above us as though in greeting, I couldn’t help but feel a little pride.
Everything along the way seemed to have conspired against the team I’d led, and yet here we were, an unlikely trio astride the fifth highest point in the contiguous US.
We signed the summit register “Team Threading the Needle”, a nod to the win we’d pulled off. We high-fived then wearily set off on the long way to base camp three and a half thousand vertical feet below.
Little did I know at the time that I was a few hours away from an incident on the climb down that would tint my memories of the expedition.
But before I detail what happened and why it shook me so badly, a little backstory.
. . .
I moved to Washington for work in 2012, far away from the rest of my family in the flat Midwest. At first I felt rootless, but soon fell in love with climbing Washington’s mountains and began to feel more at home in my new state.
The dramatic scenery and challenging nature of mountaineering offer participants a chance to touch something completely outside of everyday life. Beyond the instant gratification of a summit adrenaline rush, though, a hard-to-reach peak is something to work towards — it’s a reason to eat your vegetables, to hit the gym, to set your alarm early. Whenever things got tough with my new life in Washington, I hunkered down on mountaineering as a way to stay grounded.
And things before this 2016 climb of Rainier had been tough for me.
Just before the New Year rang in 2015 I’d lost my best childhood friend, Chris, to suicide. We’d been buddies from kindergarten through university, and while we hadn’t been as close in the few years since graduating college and moving to separate places, his death wrecked me. I’d spent too much time since with nightmares and mood swings.
Then, not long after Chris’s death, my grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and macular degeneration. She is a very strong woman, but her illnesses nevertheless bent her to their cruel will, which was and continues to be very hard for me and my family to see.
Those hurts compounded by more everyday stressors had left me feeling sad, lonely, and pissed off.
Summiting Rainier in 2016 became a tangible, constructive goal for me to work towards. I told myself — without really knowing what it meant — that I was willing to pay just about any price to get myself a win.
. . .
Our trip up Rainier in 2016 up the standard Disappointment Cleaver Route began during the long Seattle winter.
My new co-worker Ryan, a lifelong Washingtonian, had said when I told him I was planning to climb Rainier that summiting it had been a longtime dream of his. He had no prior mountaineering experience, but did backpacking and cycling, and his enthusiasm was so infectious I told him I’d take him up with me if he was willing to train hard.
Ryan hit the books and the gym, but I began getting nervous as weeks passed and our team remained stuck at two. I had agreed to take Ryan on under the assumption we’d be able to team up with some experienced buddies that I’d climbed with before. Unfortunately, due to conditioning concerns or conflicting schedules, one by one all my climbing friends declined the expedition.
Then, by chance Ryan and I were introduced to Jeff, our co-worker’s husband, who was also incredibly eager to climb Rainier. Like Ryan, Jeff also had a good background — he had military experience and was an avid athlete — but had little experience with mountaineering itself.
Climbing season was almost upon us, though, so we invited Jeff to join us and called it good enough. Frankly, this was not without some reluctance on my part. I was all too aware that climbers die on Rainier almost every year, and that while I had a dozen or so technical climbs under my belt, I was by no means as experienced as a professional guide, which many people hire for their first trip up the mountain. I was also very conscious that while I’d summitted the Emmons Route up Rainier before, I had no in-person experience with the DC Route we were attempting.
On the other hand, some part of me was stoked. I told myself that though the challenge was bigger than I’d anticipated, it presented an opportunity for me to really claim a success I could be proud of.
As though to make things purposefully difficult, though, everything — the weather, our conflicting schedules — seemed to conspire to make team training difficult. In the end, we had to practice technique a few times in the city, individually hit the workouts hard, and then call it good enough.

And so we ended up on our summit weekend, driving into Rainier National Park with a three-person team that had never been roped together. As the behemoth loomed in front of us on the drive in, some of my doubts began to resurface.

We parked at Paradise Falls at 5,000 feet and checked into the Ranger Station in the early morning. We were greeted by plaques memorializing the many deaths on the Disappointment Cleaver, a thousand-foot promontory of loose rock for which the route we were about to attempt is named.

We each acknowledged the plaques quietly, then walked to the rangers to register our team and listen to their notes on recent conditions. They warned us that due to unseasonably hot weather, we’d want to start summit day even earlier than usual to be out of the rockfall-prone parts of the route by early in the day.
We finalized our climb plan, complete with adjusted time tables, then we hoisted our fifty-pound packs and set off hiking from the parking lot. Over the next ten hours we gained 6,000 grueling feet of elevation, passing Camp Muir, the official base camp on the standard south side of the mountain. We topped out at long last at Ingraham Flats, a relatively flat haven nestled among the craggy flanks of the upper mountain.

Reaching Ingraham in one push had taken a lot out of us, but it put us 1,000 feet of elevation closer to the summit for the next day than Muir. It also had the advantage of requiring our team to put on crampons, harnesses, and ropes, and climb a few hours for the first time as a rope-team. I’d chosen Ingraham as camp because if Ryan and Jeff were weak links, I wanted to know before summit day.
Fortunately, our climb past Muir, through Cathedral Gap and onto Ingraham Flats, had assuaged my concerns. Ryan and Jeff had shown good conditioning and mountain awareness, and the team managed the rope well.

By the time we reached Ingraham Flats, we’d settled into a good team dynamic, but were pretty wiped out. We set up camp, melted snow for drinking water, and made some freeze-dried food for dinner. Then, as we started to wind down for the day, I went to my pack to retrieve some liquid courage. Chris had given me a hip flask as a Christmas gift a few years before his death.
As we sipped from the flask and admired the rugged scenery, I remembered fond memories I’d had with Chris. I also remembered that that weekend my mother was across the world, helping my grandmother move out of the home she’d lived in for thirty years and into an assisted living home. I felt a little sad thinking of them, but resolved to turn it into fuel for the summit day.

Around eight o’clock we retreated to our tents to try and sleep. But long after we zipped up the tent and slid into our sleeping bags, side-by-side like canned sardines, my mind raced.
The first day had been a long slog, but the second day was the real test. How well would our team perform a second day in a row, as we moved into increasingly thing air and more difficult terrain? Did I truly trust the beginner team while I was at what old-timers call “the sharp end of the rope” — the vulnerable front position where a serious fall is most likely to occur?
Were we good enough?
. . .
After snatching a couple hours of fitful sleep, we roped up and left camp before midnight.
In the early morning as we trekked up the glacier, our surroundings were pitch black except where our headlamp lights touched, and our minds were fuzzed by altitude and tiredness. We’d seen several other climbing parties setting out that morning, but as time wore on the teams stretched out and we eventually lost the others’ headlamp lights. Everything around me felt oddly remote, muted.
Our trio shouted occasional commands to each other, but for the most part we settled into a quiet, steady rhythm, each of us suspended in our own worlds with nothing but rope between us in the night.
After we crested Disappointment Cleaver, the wind we’d faced below came at us now unshielded. My ears were filled with the noise of rushing air and the drumroll of my straps and clothes flapping. From the vantage point on top of the ridge, we also began to see pre-dawn alpenglow started seeping into the bowl of the sky.
We continued on hour after hour, taking as few breaks as possible so as to keep moving and stay warm in the insistent wind. Our breaths were shallow from the altitude, and I began feeling the expected altitude-borne headache and nausea.

The sky slowly lightened, and when the sun rose proper we looked down. The Cleaver and our camp on the Flats even farther were both several miles away from us now. Looking up we could see the summit above was also still far away. Rope-teams ahead of us shrunk up the mountain until they were only specks on the massive white slopes.
I continued in the rhythm of what mountaineers call the ‘forever pace’. Step, step, plant your axe, exhale, inhale. Step, step, plant your axe, exhale, inhale.
Time slowed down, or it passed by more quickly than usual.
Eventually we crested the rim in the early hours of the morning. The views spread out far below us were gorgeous, but I found myself too tired to fully appreciate them.
We crossed the summit crater to the true summit. The gusts at 14,411 feet were fierce, we stamped our feet for warmth and took a few quick selfies.

We high-fived, found the summit register nestled under a rock, and signed it “Team Threading the Needle”.
I thought of Chris’s flask in my pack, and of my grandmother moving out of her longtime home.
I reminded the team that most climbing accidents happened on the way down.
We tiredly checked out harness and knots as the wind whistled around us, then set back down the mountain.
. . .
A few hours passed and the downclimb proceeded smoothly. We hiked down troughs climbers had cut before us, through running belays, over expanses of rotten rock.
In late morning the wind died down and the sun got hot. By then we were at around 12,000’ — only a thousand feet elevation above base camp, but with Disappointment Cleaver still to be downclimbed.

Despite our midnight start, by the time we hit the Cleaver on the way down the snowfields around the top were already slushy. We remembered the rangers’ warnings about the hot day causing rockfall, and started cautiously down the route.
We trekked as quickly as we could while still being careful of the loose gravel and unbalanced rocks underfoot. We also kept checking uphill to ensure we weren’t directly below any climbers who might accidentally kick rock down onto us.
We made good time and had made it most of the way down, with the relative safety of the open glacier only a few hundred feet away, when I heard Ryan and Jeff shout.
I tensed up, and a split-second after they’d called out, a football-sized rock shot past me a few inches from my knees.
I saw more rocks falling and without thinking about it I jumped down the slope, out of the way.
Everything happened very fast, but I know as I jumped down the face I swung on the rope under the safety of a big boulder, as rocks big enough to have taken my head off sailed over where I’d been standing and clattered further down the mountain.
I remember hanging from the rope, the loaded harness digging into my groin, and feeling my heart hammering in my chest.
The sound of rockfall petered out, and I looked up ahead.
“I’ve got you,” Jeff called from above, holding the rope. I felt a surge of gratitude for Jeff and Ryan, the two first-timers I’d ironically been worried about, who by calling out and by reacting fast enough to catch my fall had likely saved my life.
I found my feet below myself and looked down to adjust my prusiks knots and my harness. As I checked my gear I noticed that my hands were trembling. I remember realizing that ‘shaking with fear’ was not just a figure of speech.
Ryan and Jeff were asking if I was okay as I shakily clambered back on the ledge with them.
I wanted a moment to gather my wits, but I also didn’t want to linger in a place where we were sitting ducks.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We continued down the Cleaver, and nobody said anything. We’d been in good spirits at the top of the Cleaver but the mood was gone.
As we left the rotten rock behind and crossed onto glacier I realized I was crying. I felt fairly composed, but I could feel tears flowing down my cheeks and I couldn’t make them stop.
I remember my mind playing two images over and over. One, I thought of my grandmother, shuffling through her new unfamiliar home still filled with unpacked boxes, and my mother by her side answering an unexpected phone call. Two, I remembered all my childhood friends gathered at Chris’s funeral, except this time it was my funeral.
I remember wishing that I could stop the tears because they were blurring my vision, and surreptitiously kept wiping my face dry as we continued down the snow slopes. I just wanted to be back in the relative safety of our base camp, and eagerly counted down the remaining obstacles… Just one more running belay, one more crevasse crossing.

We got back to camp without incident. We unroped, removed our crampons and harnesses. I took a deep breath and wiped my face dry.
I remember feeling supremely vulnerable. The icefall above us loomed craggy and huge, and where the day before I’d been in awe of its beauty, that day I only imagined house-sized chunks of ice sloughing off the face in the heat and tumbling down, burying us. Every so often we’d hear a long, echoing clatter as the mountain absorbed more sun and let loose dust and stones.
I felt wide awake. We’d climbed about ten hours already that day, but all I wanted to do was put our gear back on, pack up camp, and get the hell out of there. I remember crunching the numbers and thinking we’d have just enough time to make it to the parking lot by sunset. Sure, downclimbing ten thousand feet in one day was brutal, but at least we’d be able to sleep somewhere off the mountain.
I looked over and, with a sinking feeling, realized that wasn’t an option.
Jeff had just disappeared into his tent and was passed out asleep.
Ryan was looking a little pale and sickly.
He asked me again how I was feeling, and we talked a little about how shaken up I was.
As we talked, he began looking suddenly worse, then he stood suddenly, trudged with wobbly legs beyond our camp, and began dry-heaving in the snow.
I gave him a hand back to the tent, where he he lay down.
The spell over me was broken. I was glad to have something to do other than brood.
I turned both stoves on and started a miniature assembly line, filling pots with snow and filtering the melt into our bottles. Every so often I poured a little water into Ryan’s small tin cup. Sometimes he took a sip or two before lying back onto his sleeping bag, and sometimes he puked the water back up.
Over the course of the next few hours, I melted and filtered enough water to fill every Camelbak and water bottle we had in the camp. I was worried about Ryan maybe having cerebral edema, an altitude-induced condition in which the brain swells, sometimes fatally. Without trying to worry him, I checked in every so often to make sure he was lucid, and coaxed him to drink more water, to take some electrolytes.
He eventually started saying he was feeling better, and we discussed how he was likely just very dehydrated. I began to worry less, and as he forced down a few more cups of water, I could see him slowly looking stronger.
Eventually he found his feet beneath him, and at some point Jeff woke up. As dusk settled over the mountain we tidied up camp and got our gear ready for the next day.
Then we zipped ourselves into our tents for the night.
As I lay in my sleeping bag, I thought of how even as Ryan was feeling horrible himself, he’d been asking me how I was and supporting me. I thought of how a few hours ago my team had helped save me, and how just a short time later Ryan had been vulnerable as well.
Ryan and Jeff fell back asleep but the evening stretched on for me. We’d climbed at altitude close to twenty hours in two back-to-back days, and yet my mind would not shut off.
Memories of the incident kept replaying in my head. I kept asking myself if climbing mountains was a recklessly stupid hobby.
I rustled in my pack, finished the remaining whiskey from Chris’ flask. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. After a long while, I feel asleep.
. . .
We woke early the next morning to a gorgeous sunrise. I felt as though the mountain that had just unexpectedly bared its teeth at me was once again smiling.

We packed up and hit the trail, and I was privately counting down the hours until we were off the mountain.
When we descending down through the clouds, off the snow and onto groomed trails crammed with tourists in sneakers and running kids, I loosened up a bit. But I only felt truly at ease when I was back safely home, fed and showered, and in bed.
Lying back against my pillows, I sent pictures to my family, my friends, and enjoyed sharing the good news that we’d made it, but my cheer felt a little forced.
I didn’t quite know how I really felt. I’d had several near-accidents while climbing before, but never anything this close, and never anything so completely unavoidable.
Over time, the immediate shock of the incident faded, and I was left with a smoother recollection of things. My memory started to favor the Instagram-worthy photos, the GoPro footage I cut and set to one of my favorite songs. I started to realize that despite — or maybe because of — the downs, we really had earned a win.

. . .
It’s been close to a year now.
Ryan, Jeff, and I still trade stories from the climb. We intend to climb again sometime, although I’m not currently comfortable repeating the Disappointment Cleaver route.
I’ve realized since the incident that nothing worth having — a mountain summit, a strong relationship with family, a best friend — comes easily. Loving someone means their pain becomes your pain as their joy become your joy; mountains can raise you high but can also pull you low.
I’ve decided to keep evaluating where my reasonable limits are, but to keep pushing as well. I’ve come to realize more fully that I am a vulnerable human being who will need support at times, and at other times will need to be there for others.
I now embrace double-edged swords.
