Longmire to Muir
A blind date at 3:36am, a 7400ft climb, and a free GoPro
The following essay is the fourth in a five part series on some winter adventures leading up to a winter ski descent of Glacier Peak. You can watch my video version of on Tik Tok. Peter Steele’s version of the story, which I especially enjoyed, can be found here. I also owe photo credit to Peter for 95% of the photos used.
February 7: Get Ready for Gilbertson
January 19-25: Washington Ice Climbing with Dan
February 1-2: Solo Winter Storm Overnight at Crystal Mountain
THIS ISSUE 👉 February 4: Mt: Rainier: Longmire to Muir with Peter
February 8-9: Glacier Peak Ski Descent
February 2— I received a message from a man in my running club I had never met named Peter Steele asking if I wanted to ski from Camp Longmire to Camp Muir on Mt Rainier in a couple days.
At 2,761 feet of elevation, Camp Longmire is considered the gateway to Mt Rainier National Park and has also served as the site of the park headquarters since 1899. Camp Muir, at 10,188 ft, is the mountain’s most popular high camp for climbers built in 1921. Geez, that’s old!
While people love skiing on Mt Rainier, no one as far as I know skis at Longmire. It usually doesn’t have snow. The timing of Peter’s text happened to coincide with one of the rare windows when Longmire had about two inches on the ground.
Peter’s idea wouldn’t be fun for powder hounds and snow snobs, but it sounded pretty great to a man unemployed, car-less, and desperate to justify his unemployment with mountain adventures. I said yes right away.
The next day, at 3:36 am, Peter pulled up to the marina and greeted me with a warm, welcoming smile. Any blind date that starts at 3:36 on a Tuesday is bound to foster endearment, and this was no exception. Over the course of the next 2.5 hours in the car, we learned as much as we could about each other.
I found out that Peter had climbed Mt Lago with Eric Gilbertson in a 70 hour epic back in January. I anxiously peppered him with questions about the outing, and Peter quickly put me at ease.
He had gotten word that I would join Eric the coming weekend and had anticipated briefing me about the trip during our Muir ski tour. I was grateful— it felt like I was getting private tutoring from the head TA days before a huge exam.
We started skinning just as it was getting light after 6 am from the parking lot. We crossed a couple rivers and creeks on thin logs and eventually got into deep snow.
As we skinned, I regaled to Peter my dreams of building a career as an adventurer and mentioned the videos I make on Tik Tok. GoPros came up and I told Peter I wanted to buy one as soon as I landed a sponsorship.
Peter said something to the effect of, “Olly, I really want to get to Muir today. This is the third time I’ve tried doing it, and I know every piece of this route. If we get there, I’ll buy you a GoPro.”
I couldn’t suppress my smile. For Peter to offer me a GoPro, it meant he believed in me. Not just my ability to pace us to Muir, but he also wanted to support my adventures.
I told him, “Well, you gotta at least let me break trail if you’ll buy me a GoPro.” He obliged, and I took over making our skin track for some time.
At Paradise, we stopped for a bathroom break and chatted with the head National Park Ranger. It gave us some satisfaction to see his amusement when we told him we came from Longmire.
For reference, Paradise is the typical parking area used by backcountry skiers on Rainier. The site even used to have a rope tow, which was used by mountain division ski troops for training in World War II. When I first learned about the 10th Mountain Division on Rainier (thanks Andrew Charman), I was most surprised to learn there was already a rope tow there just for fun.
It turns out that a guy named Jim Parker from Williams built tow ropes at Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, and Snoqualmie Pass in 1938! When Parker proposed the project to the Seattle Parks Board, he wrote, “In a congested area a ski tow eliminated the most frequent of accidents: collision between person ascending and person descending.”
That led me to my next question… how the heck were people ascending before the rope tow? All I know is that my fancy uphill ski gear was invented about five years ago. A long rabbit hole later, I have learned much about the history of downhill skiing including the existence of a ski tournament on Mt Rainier as early as 1922. Nonetheless, I still don’t know if these folks were using seal skins or what to go uphill on skis.
Back to Peter and I: after Paradise we lucked out with a fresh track through the new snow that had been made by a mountaineering course camping out for the week. We zipped up what would have been the deepest snow of the day to Panorama point.
Around 2:30, we made it to Muir under blue skies and robust winds. We transitioned and skied back down to Paradise, stopped for one more bathroom break and then skied down to about 4000 ft before taking off our skis and walking the rest of the way.
We arrived at the car in the dark around 6:30 pm, and when we drove back to Seattle, I was waiting for the sun to come up.
The whole day felt like a dream. We reached Muir without a hitch, I made a new friend, earned a Go Pro, and spent every hour of daylight on Mt. Rainier. So when I actually got back to the boat, my mind thought it was 6 am. I was ready to start my day in Seattle. Meanwhile my body passed out like a rock.
“you at least gotta let me break trail if you’ll buy me a GoPro” 😂😂😂