Mt Rainier

Well we did it, and dad officially showed up Andy. We started by camping at cougar canyon in Mount Rainier National Park. Dads first tent experiece in 45 years, its about damn time. On Wed we started our hike up to Camp Muir in shorts and good spirits. Before we knew it the sky was pissing down on us making our packs ten pounds heavier, andy very grumpy, and six hours of straight uphill with brian carrying about 100 pound pack.

When we got to camp we were just above the cloud line with sunny skies and a beautiful sunset overlooking mount saint helens, mt adams, hood, and jefferson. The next day we just played around with our ice tools, ate a bunch of turnips, and andy built us a large home in the snow.

Friday began the dreadful never ending day. We climbed 4300 feet and decended 9400 feet between the hours of 1:30 am to 7:30 pm, with some napping and packing time in between. At some points we didnt know if andy was going to make the swearagin rope team ascend any further, with complaints of communication involving rest stops with his brother. Katie was on rope team beef jerky with chris, and everytime katie turned around she found him puking. But we made it to the top while andy dad and chris were rather tired and katie and brian did yoga poses and handstands on the top.

After our long day we headed for seattle to catch up on sleep and had a few to many cocktails with some of my wonderful friends, all while being the ultimate tourists.

All in all we had a great time but i dont see dad having any camping trips in the near future. We all learned quite a bit including we realized that brian is much more pateint than we give him credit for, andy needs to get in better shape, katie shouldnt be the one to buy the food or all you have is organic veggies with no meat and lots of hot sauce, and that dad is one hell of a fit 61 year old.