How to Climb Mount Rainier Without A Guide

Mount Rainier in Washington State is an incredible peak. Standing at 14,410 ft. tall and covered in massive glaciers on all sides, it’s not a mountain to be taken lightly. Learn what it takes to climb Rainier without a guide and the skills you need to have before you step foot on the mountain.

Above the clouds on the Disappointment Cleaver Route.

Glacier Travel Skills 

Glacier Travel Skills are the bread and butter of the Rainier climber’s necessary skills. Here is the breakdown of what you need to know how to do: 

Walking between crevasses.

Walk in crampons

You will have crampons on for the better part of your climb, so be sure that you are comfortable walking in them without catching your pant legs or stepping all over the rope (i.e. “crampooning”). 

Self-Arrest (and Team-Arrest) with Your Ice Axe

The ice axe, or mountaineering tool, is the primary piece of equipment used to stop or “arrest” falls. Practice self-arresting in any situation you can think of: hard snow, soft snow, different slope angles, feet first, head first, on your back, on your stomach...you get the picture. Make sure everyone in your rope team is comfortable and confident self-arresting, because this is the primary way you will stay safe on the glacier. 

Rope Team Travel

Your team must understand how to move together safely and efficiently while tied together. Here are a couple pointers to be thinking about:

• Don’t step on the rope. It’s easy to end up with slack in the rope between you and the next person on your team. This presents a prime opportunity for crampooning the rope and damaging it, as well as introducing too much slack into the system, which is dangerous in the case of a fall. 

• Make sure that there’s enough space between climbers to handle potential crevasse falls. If you are too close together, then it will be quite difficult to rig crevasse rescue systems, and it will be more likely that more than one team member will fall in. Proper spacing is super important. 

• Learn how to tie mountaineer’s coils. This technique ensures that all members of the rope team have enough extra rope to rig a rescue system if the need arises. 

• Practice placing protection as you move as a team, as well as pitching out a leader and belaying the followers. This requires you to know how to use proper snow anchor techniques such as:

• Placing pickets and/or snow flukes

• Placing Ice screws

• Building Deadmen

• Building Snow/Ice bollards (this last one is unlikely to be used, but it’s still a good anchor to know and practice).

Crevasse Rescue

Your whole team must be confident in stopping a crevasse fall and then getting the fallen climber out of the crevasse. If the climber falls into the crevasse and is uninjured, it’s often best to have them climb the rope out of the crevasse themselves. If this isn’t possible for any reason, then the climbers above need to rig a pulley system to retrieve the fallen climber. All members of the team must be confident in:

• Team-arrest

• Ascending a rope

• Building snow anchors

• Building 2:1, 3:1 (Z-pulley), and 7:1 pulley systems.

REI has a great how-to guide for a safe/efficient crevasse rescue, and Petzl has a great resource on the necessary pulley systems. 

Hazard Assessment (Mountain Sense)

The number of things on Mt. Rainier that can hurt or kill you is staggering. These include:

The Kautz Ice Cliff.

• Rockfall

• Uncontrolled falls

• Avalanches

• Serrac (monstrous chunks of glacial ice) falls

• Bad weather

• Altitude Sickness (HACE or HAPE)

• Hypothermia

• Crevasses

• Gravity

Learning how to assess these dangers is key to your safety on Mount Rainier. Pay careful attention to the temperature and weather. Rock and icefall tends to occur when things warm up and begin to thaw. Don’t stop and hang out under steep sections of snow, ice, or rock. Instead move quickly through the most hazardous terrain.

Just because you are on a popular route with other people does not mean that it is safe. For example, the OTC team has experienced rockfall on the DC route every time we’ve climbed it, and hiking through a football field’s worth of avalanche debris will make you realize just how real these dangers are. 

Above the clouds on Rainier.

Fitness

This isn’t really a skill, per se, but in order to summit Mount Rainier, you need to have a high level of endurance, with the ability to hike a heavy pack up steep snow and ice for prolonged periods. A high level of fitness is a prerequisite or baseline for climbing the mountain, so be sure to place an equally high level of importance on physical preparedness.  

Snow Camping

Most likely you will be camping in the snow when you are climbing Mount Rainier. Prepare to dig out your tent platform and kitchen area, as well as staking everything down really well. You will probably need to boil water from snow while camping as well, so be sure to plan on this when choosing the type of stove you bring, as well as how much fuel you will need. Some of the more popular camps on Rainier have toilet facilities (bonus!), but otherwise be sure to bring a  human waste disposal system and know how to use it.

Navigation

Last but definitely not least is navigation while you are on the mountain. Be sure to get the most up-to-date conditions of your route from the climbing rangers before starting out, and ask about any specific obstacles that may present a risk to your climb (snow bridges, large or hidden crevasses, etc.).

On Rainier during a total whiteout.

Storms can sweep in suddenly, dropping the visibility to nothing, so knowing how to effectively pinpoint your location using a combination of a map, compass, altimeter, and GPS are key to safely navigating the mountain. It’s essential that you are comfortable using all these tools in different combinations. For example, if the battery in your GPS or smartphone dies, you must be able to use the map/compass. For a more in-depth look at navigation skills, sign up for our email list to be the first to know about our upcoming Skills Course: Land Navigation.

Want more information on climbing Mt. Rainier? Check out our other posts below!