Muir ought seven
Adam and Eva organized another incredible spring hiking/snowboarding trip to Camp Muir on Mount Rainier yesterday. We did this same trip last year (and I remembered my camera then) but this year I forgot my camera, so instead I wanted to leave a few notes on the hike.
The hike starts from the Paradise parking lot at about 5,400 feet and ends at Camp Muir just above 10,000 feet. It’s definitely difficult - last year I thought it was the hardest physical activity I’d ever done but I hadn’t prepared for it with a single hike or really any cardiovascular exercise. This year I’ve been running a lot more and low key hike or two and it felt way better. At this time of year, there is snow all the way from the Paradise parking lot to Camp Muir, but depending on snow conditions it might not be possible to ride all the way to the base. Last year it worked, but this year the snow was a lot stickier requiring some hiking or sledding on our boards - warm weather wax might help.
On the trip I used my new Garmin Forerunner GPS to track my progress. One funny thing about the Forerunner I didn’t figure out until I was about 1000′ above the parking lot is that it has settings for your pace for sprinting, running, jogging, speed walking, and walking. The trick is if you are going slower than your “walking” speed then it considers you at rest and it will give you GPS data like your elevation and speed, but it won’t create a trail for your route. I changed the “walking” pace when I figured this out, but since I was going slower than that pace up to that point, I didn’t have a trail to help guide me back to the parking lot for the bottom chunk of the mountain. This isn’t a huge deal but if you aren’t careful (I wasn’t) you’ll wind up going back to the visitor center which is about a half mile from the Paradise parking lot.
I drank almost exactly 1.5L of water on the way up - one full Camelback snowbowl of water. I had a full Nalgene in my pack, too, and since I didn’t need much water at the top or on the way down this turned out to be a lot of extra water, but that’s probably a good thing in case of emergency. Last year I didn’t snack much on the way up and felt like I regretted it. This year I had a handful of trail mix every 500-1000′ of elevation gain and felt much better.
On the hike itself, last year I used the Eric Kolvy “rest step” technique to make the last 500′ of elevation gain before Camp Muir. To do this, you take a short step forward with your left leg, step with your right leg up to a standing position, rest, then take a short step forward with your right leg, and repeat. This is very slow going, but if you’re in a hard slog of endurance, it makes it possible to reach your goal. This year we left the parking lot at about 9:30 at about 12:15PM I was at 8000′ feet and set a goal to reach the top by 2PM. This meant changing my pace for elevation gain from 16.8 feet/minute to 21 feet/minute (a calculation I’m now very glad I didn’t do on the mountain because I probably would have given up before I started), so I skipped the rest step, worked hard, kept an eye on my pace with my GPS and made it to the camp just before 2PM. And was exhausted 
The parking lot is cold, but you get hot very fast on the hike. Last year I started out with my snowpants and jacket on and wasted a bunch of time trying to strip out of these after about 500′ above the parking lot. This year I started in a first layer top and pants and that carried me most of the way up. It was overcast and I put on my jacket near Panorama Point but didn’t need anything before that. By contrast, last year was a clear day but it was MUCH windier and colder and I needed to put on both my jacket and pants before getting to the top, though I also moved a little more slowly.
Otherwise I wore my snowboarding boots all the way up, which worked out fine, though since my snow pants don’t fit over my boots, it means needing to take off the boots somewhere to put on the pants, which is a small hassle. I didn’t quite master the sunscreen strategy but I *think* I’ve got it now. Last year I put sunscreen on my forehead, which I paid for badly shortly after starting the hike. You sweat a lot on the hike and I had a ton of sunscreen getting in my eyes, almost completely blinding me for about half an hour. This year I skipped sunscreen on my forehead, but somehow didn’t realize this might lead to a sunburned forehead. Well, it does. So next time I’ll wear a hat, like almost everyone else in our group had. Otherwise I was careful to be sure to get sunscreen on my ears and underside of my nose, which are easy to forget and easy to get sunburned with the reflection coming off the snow.
Lastly about visibility, the route down, and conditions…last year it was super clear out and very easy to tell whether we were near the trail, approaching a cliff, or so forth. This year, there were many instances on the route down where we couldn’t see more than about 30 feet ahead of us. For this, I was very, very glad to have a GPS leading us back along the trail. You really don’t want to ride exactly on the trail people have been hiking up, since the snow is really inconsistent and you know that if you can just stay 20 feet off the trail, you’ll have tons of relatively great untracked snow. But in poor visibility conditions that can be super dangerous. We took a few questionable turns, but largely had good snow and weren’t riding over footprints the whole way down, but without the GPS I would not have felt comfortable trying to find that trail. I had the sense that everybody who was following me felt some of that hesitation, too, since I already tend to ride a little more…let’s say “confidently” than your average snowboarder. But we all got out in one piece! With the forerunner 201 going for about $75 on craigslist, I think it’s a great investment for a trip like this.
I think that covers most of my observations about the whole experience. I would definitely encourage anyone to do this hike and ride. It’s very hard but it’s a really great experience and feeling. Normal caveats about “weather can change dramatically on the mountain and if you aren’t careful, go up when you shouldn’t, or don’t turn back when you should, you might die” certainly apply. But if you’re smart about the trip and go with some people who are responsible, it’s amazingly satisfying. Big ups again to Adam and Eva for putting it together!