Mt. Rainier is bigger than you think

Or I thought for that matter. 14,400 feet is not very high. But when you consider that it's a 10,000 foot gain from the base and that almost 90% of that is glaciated you begin to get the picture.

If you ask most triathlon coaches, they probably won't tell you that climbing the countries 2nd largest mountain isn't the best way to cool down a week after your first Ironman. But what the hell, I don't have a coach.

For a week my parents, my brother, and I cruised around the Pacific Northwest from Seattle to Victoria to Olympia seeing Orcas playing in the Puget Sound, kayaking, hiking, and drinking wine. We spent two days hiking at Mt. Rainier and had great weather - we were pumped to start our climb the next day.

So Kumar, Brian, and I started up the mountain. And weather hit us in the face. As soon as we got on the glacier it started raining on us and got worse from there. We barely made it to Camp Sherman in time to set up camp and eat dinner before it was dark. Our plans to summit that morning were foiled by the monsoon-like rain that battered us for the next 6 hours keeping us and every other climber on the mountain in our tents. Because we all had flights out on the next day we had to go back down. But Rainier isn't going anywhere, and we'll be back soon. Hopefully, I can spend 2 weeks climbing Hood, Adams, Baker, and of course, Rainier next summer.