“What? You missed your flight?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to Virginia to see my family for Christmas. They’ve overbooked everything. I’m going to sit here at the airport for 14 hours to try to get on a red-eye to Raleigh and rent a car from there.”

Sarah never made it onto a flight for her 5 day trip to see her family. She came home that night. The next day I mentioned that the weather for our planned trip to Camp Muir for new years looked bleak.

“But we have a stellar weather window right now. How does Christmas at Muir sound?”

We were off for a Christmas at 10,188 feet.

We picked up Deborah from her house at 7am Christmas eve and made the drive to the Nisqually entrance, flashed our “get in free” badge and sped up the icy road to get our permit. Acquiring a backcountry permit for Camp Muir can be a real problem without reservations sometimes, but not on Christmas eve. The ranger told us there were only two other summit parties there that night. We’d have it nearly all to ourselves.

After pulling into one of the “overnight parking” spots at Paradise, we hastily donned winter gear, tighted lashes and emptied bladders for the 7 and one-half hour uphill struggle to come. Then we set out and up on skis and showshoes at 10:30 am. Not exactly alpine, but the best we could do considering we were one of the first cars in the lot.

The mountain from down low. Just at Glacier Vista. Sarah Hamman image

We made our way up and up, as this trip always requires, through familiar terrain; deep powder, bluebird skies and cold, cold air. Sarah skinning up on her tele’s and Deborah and I on snowshoes, we each hauled an average of 40 pounds or so on our back. Not too heavy under prime conditions, but try traversing the southern slope of Pan Point on skis or snowshoes in a foot of loose fresh and with a full pack. One word: Sketchy. No, exhausting. actually it was sketchy and exhausting. On top of Pan Point lunch awaited.

Lunchtime. I still can't believe that this was Christmas eve! Sarah Hamman image.

After lunch we headed back upwards for 6 more hours of relentless and madeningly unforgiving “up”.  By now we were just at 7,300 feet; 2000 vertical feet from the truck and 3,000 vertical feet from dinner. We ran into an extraordinarily overprepared  Canadian couple, gear sled and all, who were going to attempt the summit in two days. We bid them good luck and passed them. Then we were passed by Gavin,  mountaineer from down under who was going to attempt the summit solo on Christmas morning.

If you’ve never been to Muir, the trip is endless. If you’re even the slightest bit out of shape, you will turn around and head straight for your couch. The trip to Muir is not confortable and getting there takes diggin deep sometimes. Sarah and I kept a steady pace, rest-stepping and pressure breathing. Deborah, disliking the cold, literally sprinted to Muir for the relative warmth of her sleeping bag. Around 9,000 feet the sun went down with Deborah nowhere in sight ahead of us. All Sarah and I could see was more up. Then the winds came, not a gentle breeze, but the wicked gusts from the upper mountain driving spindrift into any hole in our clothes it could find.

Goodbye sun, only an hour and a half left by headlamp. Sarah Hamman image.

The sun had gone down, and the wind was pushing us back down the mountain. Through it I could hear my cell phone beeping at me. I had left it on and the battery was dying. I pulled a glove off, and grabbed my phone to turn it off, but it got blown out of my hand. As it bounced and sped downmountain with incredible velocity I thought to myself “well then, there goes my phone, isn’t that a shame”. Immediately following that silly thought was: “Shit! What am I thinking?! There goes my only form of communication with anyone in the world. Lost forever!” I’m sure I looked funny sprinting downmountain with a huge pack and showshoes – probably like a retarded penguin. Relief came as I dove onto my phone just in time to see one of my ski poles skip past me as I skidded to a halt on the icy firn. Gathering my things, I finally turned my phone off, laboriously stood and huffed many deep, oxygen-deprived breaths for a few minutes. I turned to see Sarah still skinning her way up, but I now had to make up 50 yards of ground I’d already achieved once before. And she missed the opportunity of chuckling at my little epic.

Sarah navigates the half-door to our home for Christmas night.

Sarah and I got to Muir around 7:30 pm to find the shelter open and Deborah cooking dinner inside with our friend for the night, Gavin. We cooked after negotiating a potential stove epic, ate, sipped tequila we smuggled up in an old olive jar, shared climbing stories and got to sleep early; Gavin had a 2:00 am start on the Gibraltar Ledges route the next morning. I woke up at midnight and laid in my bag until 2 when Gavin’s alarm went off. I dozed back off soon after he finished his breakfast. I got everyone up at 6:00 Christmas morning because I literally had to pee; there was no way I could hold it any longer.  The good news was that the sun was coming up.

Sarah and Deborah on the Cowlitz Glacier in awe of our perfect Christmas sunrise. You've never seen alpenglow unless you've been in alpenglow. Cathedral Rocks in the background.

We played in the sunrise for probably an hour and a half, fighting stiff 40mph gusts and biting spindrift for the spectacle of what we were seeing. This was a Christmas gift better than I had ever received before. As soon as the sun had risen enough that we had full-spectrum sunlight, we retreated to the shelter for oatmeal, hot chocolate and tea; a splendid Christmas morning.

Mmmm, breakfast of champion mountaineers.

Packing up took what seemed like forever because the three of us were endlessly distracted by where we were and wanting to take as much of it in as we could. Eventually we got everything stowed and took a group pic. Sore and exhausted, we began the trudge down.

Getting ready for the descent. Sorry in advance, knees.

"Wait, I thought I was gonna ski down from up there!?" Sarah's hardcore.

Sarah cuts some turns in the hard styrofoam just under Muir.

The descent was long, fun and bright. Sarah shredded most of the way down as Deborah and I plungestepped through hard styrofoam snow and ice. On the upper reaches, the morning wind lashed at our backs and even helped Deborah glissade a little. We made it back to the truck at around 3:30pm dreaming of beers and burgers.

Relief from aching feet and backs. On Christmas day images of beer and cheesburgers danced in our heads.

So, then the question of where one finds either beer or burgers on Christmas day arose. We found that you either find a Chinese buffet or a bar. We chose Hanna’s where the girls ate veggie burgers and I made them gag by inhaling a whole Hanna’s Heartstopper. Wow.

Hanna's Heartstopper. Yeesh...

You know, if Sarah had scored a seat on a red-eye through Chicago she’d probably still be stuck there. Maybe it’s a good thing she was forced to hang around here for a while. Either way, I think we all had an epic holiday. The rest of this post will be a photodump of some interesting photos from this trip. I’ll post panos as soon as they’re done stitching.

Sarah and Deborah on the way up, Christmas eve.

Looking out the shelter door. Not a bad view, albeit a cold-as-hell one.

Rime ice in the morning. Sexy.

I love Christmas morning... Blowing hard on the summit.

Sunset, Christmas eve. Two hours before dinner. Damn. Sarah Hamman image.

Deborah fights the wind on the Cowlitz Glacier Christmas morning. Sarah Hamman image.

The Muir crew. Christmas day 2009.

Sarah gets her sunrise on at about 7,300 feet.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, but I hadn’t gone to Bishop with my boys like I was supposed to due to the fact that I had an in-town obligation for the day before. I canceled my vacation and decided I’d have a holiday on my terms for once. Basically, I’d planned to wake up late, cook something, hit a bar for a beer and watch a football game and then hopefully hit a late movie. Check, check, check, check and check. I still had three days off.

Oh, what to do…

…mountains?

Yes!

Just out of Paradise Saturday.

Sarah and I decided we would beta test our winter gear with a ballsy romp ’shoeing as high up Rainier as we could get. It turned out to be the finest fluff of the year so far. Since they don’t open the road to Paradise until the plows are done at 10am, we didn’t get the alpine start we should have had, but we weren’t going far – we didn’t need to go far to find the gnar. We left paradise on snowshoes about 11:30 and started breaking fresh powder in whiteout conditions. I’d been here more than 100 times so I knew landmarks and terrain when we could see it. As we got higher, the conditions got worse, the wind blew harder and visibility just plain went away.

On top of Panorama Point kicking steps with our 'shoes and bearing the tough wind.

Above Panorama point, we were cold, tired and it was getting close to time that we found a bivi site for the night. Just at McClure Rock we decided to find a shelter. We dug out a huge drift on the lee side of the small ridge directly below McClure; it took about an hour to dig the perfect shelter and set up the bivi. The site was great and really sheltered us from the wind.

Starting the shelter dig. Perfect spot if you ask me.

Celebratory PBR after the bivi was complete. Now, that's how you keep a beer cold! (this photo is for Micah)

We hunkered down to be tentbound for a while and began eating the Thanksgiving feast we hauled up there. Cold turkey with cold dressing, potatoes and homemade pecan pie. Really a fitting feast!

Thanksgiving at altitude.

After dinner we really hunkered for a long (13 hours) night of very broken and very cold sleep. We woke up on average, I’d say, every 30 to 60 minutes from the cold, discomfort or from the sounds of shattering glaciers and avalanches. It was a long night. We did manage to pop out of the tent at around 2 am into sub-20 degree temps to see that the storm had passed, the skies were clear and the nearly full moon was illuminating a few contrails and the cold, snowy landscape in it’s characteristic eerie blue glow. Amazing to be here again after so much time away. Back to bed for now.

Good morning, bivi. I love you.

At around 6am we punched the rest of the snow off the tent and scampered out into the early pre-sunrise glow. I bet it’s clear, I bet it’s clear! Oh god, let it be clear! is all I could think, It was clear – and beautiful – and cold. And the views were still as great as they’ve always been from up here.

Good morning, sun. I love you too. On top of a new foot of fresh.

We got up and were struck with the most amazing sunrise. The temps were in the teens, but the brilliant views over the cloud layer made up for the chill. The clouds gave us little peeks of the Tatoosh, Adams, St. Helens and even Hood. Amazing as it always is up here.

Morning views, hundreds of miles to the south.

We stood in awe for about an hour, broke the bivi and decided that we’d hump back down instead of going up to Camp Muir due to the shortened daylight of winter, and there was hot chocolate waiting for us down there.

Up from Pebble Creek towards the top of Panorama Point again. We were glad to see the mountain.

This trip was a great trial run for Sarah and I to gear up for the next 6 months of winter outings. Sorry, Sarah that I don’t ski – perhaps I’ll learn soon enough. Thanks for taking such great photos too, virtually all the image credits go to Sarah.