In the cold steady rain at Paradise, the parking lot was host to two kinds of climbers: those returning from Camp Muir after being weathered off, and those glancing upward into the fog wondering if they should even try. Joel Arbic and I were in the latter group, plodding slowly up the trail, hoping that the weather would change for the better. Joel met an aquaintance from Phoenix at Panorama Point. She happened to be climbing with the guide service, and we ran into her at various intervals along the way.
As we hiked higher, the clouds gradually began to thin out, and we had a nice band of sunshine at Muir. The summit, itself, was still obscured. Here, we roped up and moved out across the Cowlitz Glacier and up to Cathedral Gap. As soon as we got around the base of Cathedral Rock, the wind came whipping down on us. Our big packs acted like sails, and we staggered around in the loose volcanic dirt. We decided that setting up a tent in these condidtions would be too risky, and reluctantly retraced our steps back to Camp Muir.
After a few hours of “sleep”, I started boiling water for coffee at 1:00am. Even at this early hour, we could see headlamps snaking up the route. We started at 2:45am. My headlamp burned through two sets of batteries, and I was left in the dark just before traversing the base of Disappointment
Cleaver. Luckily, Joel had purchased a couple of batteries before we left, and that gave me the light I needed to make it through this tricky section. The wind grew more frigid as we struggled up the Cleaver, and we tightened our parka hoods.
After about 6½ hours, the rocks of the crater rim finally came into view. We were exhausted. It was snowing lightly, and it was hard to tell where the crater stopped and the clouds began.
As we were sitting on the crater rim contemplating our descent, a solo climber materialized out of the fog and approached us. He was older than the average climber, or maybe his tanned leathery face just made him look that way. He spoke with a heavy French accent:
“When you get back to Camp Muir, could you tell the rest of my party that I’m okay? I left them three days ago with only a small amount of food, but I found some food up here in the tunnels, so I’m okay. I’m going to take more measurements in the grotto.”
We could see the wide, flat expanse of the crater, but there was no tent in sight.
| “When you get back to Camp Muir, could you tell the rest of my party that I’m okay? I left them three days ago with only a small amount of food…” |
“I’ve been staying in the steam caves. It’s not as good as a tent, because the snow keeps blowing in and burying me, but I like blizzards.”
Normally, I don’t talk much with other folks, especially at 14,000′, but this was so bizzare, I was determined to figure out what this guy was doing up here.
“You found food? Up here? You’re taking measurements where?”
“I was here 3 years ago, and I stashed some food in one of the tunnels under the crater. It took me a long time to find it, but I did. I find a lot of climbing gear down there. It melts through the snow and ends up in the caves – I found an airplane last time I was here!”
He used plenty of gestures as he spoke, and, after a very animated conversation, we found out that he was part of a French team of volcanologists studying the sulfer emissions of Northwest volcanoes. He had just come from the “grotto”, which is a lake under the snow of the secondary summit crater – a place so rarely visited that many are not fully convinced that it even exists.
Just as we said our goodbyes, one of his colleagues appeared. He had just soloed up the mountain to see how things were going. We left the two Frenchmen chattering and gesturing on the crater rim.
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