Finally, summit day! Or rather, summit night! Various alarms roused everyone at 11:30pm, and we all stumbled into our clothes and switched on headlamps. Outside, the MSR's were already howling as boiling water was converted into oatmeal, hot tea and cocoa

For the middle of the night, it was amazingly warm and clear. Temperatures were still in the low 40's, and heavy layers were not going to be needed. The high pressure that had been dominant in the area for the last few days obviously wasn't going anywhere, and the cystal-clear skies reflected that. Oh, the sky! The world in which we live most of the time is so light-polluted that looking up at night usually reveals a hundred or so stars, which you get used to so fast it almost becomes a blind spot across the sky. Not here though. The almost total absence of artificial light was evidenced by the sky....thousands upon thousands of blazing stars, the Milky Way a streak across it all. To the south, the bright red pinprick of Mars hung just above our horizon. I don't think anyone stepped outside their tent who didn't switch off their headlamps and just look up in awe and wonder. If you've never seen the sky like that, you're missing out.

It was right about 12:30am when the group headed out of camp - 10 pinpricks of light against one big, dark mountain. It can be kind of reassuring to climb at night like this...you can't really see what you're climbing, so it's not as easy to psyche yourself out as it can be during the day. Before long we encountered a long stretch of water-ice, which meant a quick stop to put on crampons, even though most of the well-beaten trail was firm slush.

We climbed slowly but steadily, the guides setting an excellent pace (as they did for the whole trip). An hour or so of climbing, followed by a 5~10 minute rest for food & water. The pace we were keeping was perfect for me...I was warm from the activity, but not so warm I was sweating and getting chills from it. Each stop was almost militaristic in it's precison: stop, drop pack, put on a layer, eat, drink. A 2-minute warning from the guides, and it was stow food, remove layer, put on pack, and ready to go.

Just about 3:00am, I looked back from our climb to see the red glow of dawn on the horizon...wow. Daybreak at 3:00 in the morning - just amazing. I dug my brand-spankin' new digital camera out of my pack to try a long exposure, and to my utter horror discovered that the battery had gone dead! Uttering a few strings of profanity, I jammed it back in my pack and we continued up the mountain.

The trail was very odd in that it seemed to be melted down very deep into the snow, and in fact it almost felt like we were climbing up a steep, narrow luge track. As the day slowly lightened around us, the, snow on the glacier had melted into a penitentes-type surface - jagged formations that kind of resemble shark's teeth or scales. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any pictures (damned battery), but you can get an idea of it from this image here.

Daybreak finally hit around 5:30 or so, and looking down at the path we'd travelled was enough to give a person mild vertigo! Had we really climbed all that in the last 5 hours? Wow. Unfortunately there was still quite a ways to go. We crested a small ridge and could see most of the rest of the trail to go...a very long traverse from left to right, from dead east of the summit crater across to the saddle between Rainier and Liberty Cap. There were only a few anxious moments - one where the trail was cut into a steep, icy slope, and just barely wide enough to support a foot. After that, a tenuous bridge-crossing over a huge crevasse that, frankly, none of us could see the bottom to.

Upon attaining the saddle, the trail turned left and towards the side of the massive summit crater. The snow ended at about 14,100' or so, and was a natural resting point for the last push. The guides allowed us to unrope and remove our crampons, and suggested that the last push could be done without packs, if we felt like it. Indeed, most of us did. The last few hundred feet of this massive glacial climb were in fact a scramble up loose scree and talus to the rim of the summit crater. The wind increased from a gentle breeze to a howling 40mph gale in a matter of seconds, and finally we were on the rim, with the true summit a mere 100 yards to our right. Grinning at the true summit, I turned and broke into a jog up the small slope, and finally I was THERE! As I turned to share congratulations with the person behind me, I realized that I was all alone. Forgetting that I was the only member of the group used to climbing at 14,000', I hadn't realized that I'd virtually run to the top those last hundred yards...everyone else was taking slow, measured steps and breathing laboriously. I reflected on the amusement for a second, then shouted encouragement to my teammates. Eventually, all 10 of us stood atop the highest point of the summit crater - Columbia Crest, at 14,441 feet above sea level.

Sea level doesn't really mean much here in Colorado, but on Rainier, well, you can actually see the sea! And Seattle! And dozens of lower peaks. The scenery is endless and impressive...far in the distance, Mount Baker and Glacier Peak. Closer by, Mount Adams and the remnants of Mount Saint Helens. For a few seconds I thought of what it must have been like for anyone on the summit of Rainier to see its near neighbor erupt way back in 1980. The excellent weather continued to hold, and the view wasn't marred by a single cloud.

As hands shook around the group and cameras came out, I pulled my camera out of one pocket, and digging deep, my battery out of a pocket close to my skin. My only hope was that my warmed-up battery would allow a few shots to be taken. Luckily for me, it did! I was able to get a number of shots off the summit, including a 270-degree panoramic view around the huge summit crater. And of course, the obligatory summit-shot. I felt like I should have had an ice axe to raise over my head in triumph, but it was all I could do to stand in one place and not get blown over.

We lingered on the summit for about 15-20 minutes. Across the summit crater a group of climbers (probably a climbing team from RMI) had crested the crater rim and were slowly plodding across the snow-filled crater headed for our position. We made our way back down to our cache of packs and ropes at 14,100' and took a good long break there. It was barely after 8:30 in the morning, meaning we'd climbed this giant in just under 8 hours. Now for the fun part...descending!

As the morning had worn on, the snow conditions had gone form slushy to really, really slushy. As we roped back up and headed down across the saddle, it was only our crampons that kept the descent from turning into an uncontrolled toboggan ride. For whatever reason, my rope team was the first to head down, and in particular, I was in the lead. My theory here is that they wanted the biggest guy to go first and find any weak spots in the snow bridges and approaching crevasses, but that could have been my imagination...even though I had a good 40 pounds on any of my climbing mates!

The 4-hour descent back to Emmons Flats was largely uneventful, although the slushy conditions occasionally made keeping ones' feet a challenge. And there were indeed a couple places where I punched a foot through was had been a solid surface on the climb up. Since I had to concentrate on keeping my feet, I didn't actually get the chance to look around much on the way down, although the tiny yellow dots on the flats that were our tents gave us a good idea of how far away it really was.

It was exactly 12:30pm when we trudged back in to our campsite, both exhausted and elated. Everyone had made it, and only one person had any trouble, when they bonked from lack of food (quickly solved by the forced eating of a dozen packets of GU energy gel).

For the rest of the afternoon, it was rest & relax, watch other climbing teams descend and eat and drink to replenish our energy stores. At dinner (turkey, gravy, stuffing & potatoes...mmmmmm!) we decided to get an early start on the hike out the next day, in order to beat the heat of the day. Even though it was still daylight, everyone was absolutely sacked out by 8pm.

On to day 4...