Mt. Rainier
The highest point I had been too before I attempted Mt.Rainier was the summit of Wedge Mountain at 2892m’s, in Garibaldi Provincial Park, B.C., and I remember feeling a keen sense of achievement at having scaled that height. Just knowing that it was the highest summit in the park made it feel like more of an achievement for me, like I had conquered some invisible force, a force that as you reach higher becomes more and more oppressive. Rainier, which stands at just over 4300m’s (14,411ft), was now going to be the tallest mountain I had climbed to date. Despite the many mountaineering trips I had taken in the last few years, the trip to Mt. Rainier felt like something outside of the scope of anything I had known. This was a big mountain and it felt like it deserved a deep respect of it’s own. “….the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.” - John Muir As I stood at the Paradise visitor centre looking up at Mt. Rainier on that hot August afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking of how close it seemed. It looked no farther than a stone’s throw away. Rainier just stood there in all it’s glory, streaks of grey rock showing through the late summer snow, deep crevasses gouging the glacier that tumbled down within my view, brightly colored wild flowers dotting the grassy meadows in the foreground. Standing alone in all it’s immensity with no concern for the tiny creatures standing below looking on in awe; standing there thinking that we could somehow conquer this mass of stone and ice. But as usual the mountain doesn’t care that we are there or that we care to struggle and gasp our way up it’s flanks. It is just there, and it was in my own mind that I felt this sense of the mountains willingness to accept us, allowing us to pass and giving me the opportunity to test myself. I remember looking at the winding path that made it’s way in the direction of Camp Muir, comparing it to previous hikes in my mind, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. The mountain after all looked so close, like a super-imposed image on a screen, but no matter how long I walked that image remained the same distance away. My sense of scale was becoming more and more obscured. At that moment I remembered a quote I had seen in an outdoor store earlier that year regarding the Himalaya, it said “everything is so much bigger and so much farther away than you can imagine”....
Just when you think you’re fit enough…
You have probably seen this video on our facebook page, but i wanted to post it again because it is MOTIVATING!! It’s one of those video’s that gets stuck in your mind. Stuck in the way ,that as I biked home from work in the torrential downpour that is Squamish’s endearingly wet winter, I think about pushing it harder today up the big hill I have to bike every night . I think about kicking it down to a lower gear till my quads are burning and I can’t catch my breath. I get to the point where I feel like I have to stop, but I can’t…no I won’t, I know it’s just my mind trying to convince my body it’s had enough, so I decide to take the longer route home. I can’t let my mind win, I refuse to give in. “To climb high altitude mountains you need be more than an adventurer, you need to be an athlete”. Today in my own small way I felt like an athlete. I felt like that extra push was making me stronger. I don’t know if I can ever be at the athletic level portrayed in the video, but I am definitely going to keep pushing that little extra every day! Now let’s hope I can actually get out of bed when my alarm goes off at 5:30am tomorrow to go running in what promises to be another one of Squamish’s endearingly wet winter mornings....
