On Thursday morning, we had a big meeting in the garage to go over the group gear and trip itinerary. Finally, I got to meet Laurie and Sue! I was so excited to be part of the group. Everybody was super nice and I chomped on the bit to be on the mountain.
Was the weather going to hold out? So far, it had been picture perfect!
My bag turned out to weight about 57 pounds once I had my portion (Snow pickets, stove, and fuel) of the group gear loaded up. So, I was happy I had been training for the past several weeks, carrying big loads.
Later that day, I had a minor emergency.
The crampons I had borrowed didn’t really fit my boot. So, we went to REI and I purchased a new part, which I thought could be configured the right way. Unfortunately, the new part did not have a hole which was small enough, so Bruce called a friend of his who had a machine shop. His friend burned through several drill bits before finally figuring out how to make the hole. It took a couple hours, but we got it all worked out. Thank goodness!
We all spent time packing our bags and checking checklists. I had marked all my gear with weight tags, so it was easy for me to pack. Funny enough, I forgot to peel the tags off, so everybody was teasing me all weekend. “Clare, what a nice 10.7 oz softshell!”.
We had a big spaghetti dinner that night; another marvelous meal by Helen! Afterwards, Anne, Kevin, Josh, and I walked down to the beach and watched the tide come in. It was a perfect pre-climb day.
Tags: Day 2, Mt. Rainier, Pack and Prepare, Washington