In late 2015 my brother Karl and I hatched a plan to do a “family” Rainer trip. We choose August (of 2016) because of the typically stable weather (which it was, we had only a light breeze on the top and had sunny weather throughout). We also selected the commonly-done Disappointment Clever route as it has a less vertical gain than other routes and typically has a boot track in place, increasing the probability of success.
We allowed three days on the mountain (an extra bad-weather day), but only used two. Our group of 12 included myself, Karl, Levi (son), Rosemary (daughter), Ryan, Mark, Todd (nephews), Jonny (Rose’s friend) and several other friends of Karl. It took us about 5.25 hours to go from the car to Camp Muir. We got a few hours of sleep (some of us anyway, my sleeping pad was flat, so I got none) and then headed out at 11:00 p.m. for the summit. We left in the middle of the night as the weather was very warm so we wanted to be down off the upper mountain before the snow warmed up too much, increasing the danger of someone dropping through a soft soft-bridge and into a crevasse. It took us eight hours to summit and then four hours to get back down to Muir — and then finally about three hours to return to the car. Total climbing was a little over 9,000 feet of elevation. Here is my Strava upload of this trip.
This was my fourth trip and fourth summit success on this mountain, all with my brother Karl.
Probably the most memorable family reunion I’ll ever participate in!
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