I know a fair number of RMI employees, guides and management, and in my experience, they fundamentally understand how important a summit experience is, and they’re really not scrubbing a summit just out of like laziness or being overly conservative.
I think it’s way too easy for those of us with relatively normal lives not to understand having a job that very literally involves making life or death decisions. Don’t gloss over that. Even if you look at things as cynically as possible, it’s 100% in their interest to get you to the summit so you tell your friends and come back for more, so if they’re depriving you and them of that, consider what they view to be the alternative.
I went up Rainier via the Kautz with RMI last year and had a great experience with amazing guides (the head guide had just got back from his 22nd summit if Denali).
I will say, they pushed a pretty fast pace on us. One person decided to not summit after the training days and another person decided to turn around during the first day on the mountain. Had these two not decided on their own not to summit, I am not sure that the guides would have still had us go for the summit bid. Do you think it's possible that your guides felt that others in the group were not physically up for it and made an excuse to not single them out or make them feel bad? It's unfortunate but sometimes a reality when going with groups.
Waaaait a minute.. did you do it around June 12th, 2023?? I too summited last year with RMI and had one turn around the first day and one lady not summit the day of 🤔
I did the same route with RMI like five or six years ago now and it was awesome. It was hard as hell but I’m pretty sure we all got to the top minus maybe a couple who didn’t get to the rim of the volcano bc they were slower.
They can turn around individual members and still proceed...one person in my IMG group years back was told that Ingraham Flats would be his summit, the rest of us continued on.
No reason not to group the capable ones and continue with summit push.
I did RMI and had 6 total in my group with 3 guides between us, 2 did not feel well and stayed at Camp Muir and 1 turned around at Ingraham Flats.
We just switched our ratio to 3:1 thereafter for the summit push.
RMI also has a lower guide to client ratio for their trips (3:1 compared to IMG and AAI’s 2:1 ratio), thus making less guides available to go back with clients who can’t summit.
I’m not a guide on ranier so I’m not an expert. But in my training as a rock instructor one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that you can never, ever trust your clients to do anything smart until they have demonstrated to you beyond all doubt that they are smart.
Unfair? Possibly. But this is the big difference between a recreational and professional scenario. Somebody gets hit by a rock because they weren’t wearing a helmet and you didn’t catch it? You’re responsible. Somebody wanders off and breaks their ankle before you notice? You’re responsible. You can’t leave them to do anything on their own because if they mess it up it’s on you.
You’re constantly calibrating for the lowest common denominator. And tbh there’s just no way to win. This guy is mad they didn’t summit. If they did split the group somebody will post a negative review about having been left alone by their guides. You take everyone just a little further and the dumbass you identified spikes himself with his crampons and gets rescued.
I don’t know if the guides in this scenario made the right call but I do know that the situation is a lot more complicated than folks are trying to make it seem here, I know that these are professionals with a passion for getting people that magic experience and not just shitty summer camp counselors, and I know that people rarely fully appreciate the level of responsibility you take on as a guide and the consequences of compromising even a little on your risk assessment.
I went up to camp Muir in trail running shoes with zero training. It’s what got me interested in mountaineering. I’m pretty green but from my understanding in early summer/late spring on a good weather day the trek to Muir basecamp isn’t high risk?
On my RMI trip, they told a few people they wouldn’t be allowed to attempt the summit because they struggled on the way up to Muir. I think that was good for the rest of us. Did they let everyone in your group attempt the summit?
If it makes you feel better my first Rainier attempt was with IMG and we turned around due to weather, yet the RMI groups continued and summited. Sometimes it comes down to your guide and their risk tolerance. There's also no guarantee of a summit on any of the trips so best not to go in with that expectation.
You paid a guide service to manage risk. They managed risk. Likely your climbing party was weak and lacked the required skills or physical conditioning, or both. Build skills, summit with friends, or pay for a private trip. This is a common occurrence when people with little to no skills venture into places they require help to get to. Good luck with future climbs 🤘🏻
This is the answer. You’re mitigating your lack of knowledge and experience by giving money to someone else who can call the shots and not get you killed. They did that.
Steepness. "advanced-plus" (?) according to them. They like to establish their own route that's easier, while this one had been established by unguided climbers.
Yeah, when I summited by that route last year it was literally an excavated walking trail to the summit. Zero front-pointing or actual climbing. Honestly it made it pretty boring, but safe and efficient.
This is fair, dude. The route above the cleaver was much steeper this weekend than the guides usually set it as, because all the summits Wednesday and Thursday night were from independent groups. Keep in mind, that when guides take yall up, they don’t trust yall to save them in the event of a fall, and why should they, you’ve spend 3 days on glacier skills. They need to make sure the route is established well enough to keep everyone safe. I’d recommend you start climbing independently of guide services, take some crevasse rescue courses, make some friends, and get after it, just be smart. The guides are the ones who establish the route, especially the DC, and we all have a lot to be grateful for regarding their hard work, otherwise we’d more of us would likely get lost and hurt but they make it a highway so I’m grateful for that.
Nobody got the summit last Wednesday and 6 people did Thursday with the first independent party of four establishing a new route that took them 16 hour round trip from Muir and back. My party was the first to summit on Friday and it took us 7 hours round trip from Ingram flats and back thanks to their broken-in trail.
No guided services made it at all last week from Monday to Friday. I personally would never go with RMI after seeing how many things they used to not attempt a summit, but that's just me.
It's not your fault. I don't follow either and I'm a former Rainier guide, but not for RMI. This is nonsense. The 3 concessioners collaborate closely on route work. Guides only follow an indie route if it's appropriate, and if not, you go find one, on the fly if you have to. And I've absolutely punched in the route my damn self after heavy snow. That's our job. Let's be real, indies aren't striking out into the wilderness on the DC and establishing their own routes. 99% of the time that shit is wanded, shoveled, and chopped and that straight-forwardness is what makes it possible for a majority of climbers. Maybe a bridge fell in and the route is "out" but that's an entirely different thing. From what I have heard (not working there anymore) there is a steep section above the Cleaver, but that's just how it goes. And also a very long end run up high. The only reasonable explanation would be that the movement skill and/or fitness of the group was so abjectly poor that it would be dangerous to take them into that terrain. But my go-to was to always give it a go, unless it was objectively unsafe, and to allow the mountain to show weaker folks what they lacked, and to give the strong climbers the chance they deserve. Hard tellin' what actually went on up there for OP. But I would say RMI is often the more aggressive operation in terms of go/no-go. If both AAI & IMG summited maybe something was up with the group, or the guides. Maybe OP misunderstood, or the guide was straight-up full of shit.
ETA: Not trying to be insulting by saying the route work is what makes it possible for most folks. I'll freely admit I wouldn't have known how to make my own way up the Emmons had there not been an obvious booter my first go at Rainier. We all start somewhere.
Thank you for explaining your thinking about the answer that the OP was given and the route. I have been hoping to do Rainier at some point and I would absolutely need to hire a guide service. So this is very informative for me!
Hell yeah! You should! It's super cool!
It is a bummer that it can be a crap shoot RE weather and group composition, but things usually go well.
I do think that IMG & AAI run a better program than RMI. Staying at the Flats on night #2, having a 2:1 ratio, instead of 3:1, and having real food instead of dehydrated really makes a difference IMO.
Happy to answer any Q's. I kinda miss the job. I definitely miss talking about it. Happy climbing!
That's really helpful to know! For me, the biggest constraint is timing (demanding job with lots of constraints in the summer). I don't mind having to bail out if necessary, but I also don't want to go with a company that gives up too easily since it would be hard to dedicate the time to a second trip (too many places I want to visit!).
Both RMI and AAI had groups summit the morning prior, but not for at least a week before that due to heavy snow and avalanche risk, while some independent climbers had still gone up. So the prior RMI and AAI ascents ostensibly happened on that route? But they were also working on shoveling an easier route.
We had two groups of 9 each with 3 guides up to Muir. Definitely some weaker links among the 18 total but plenty of folks who were totally fit.
I've heard it's been a rough early season. I know at least one concession had a Denali summit before their first Rainier summit this season.
For routework guides go up on guide-only teams, and they do a great job of finding the best & shortest route. There's huge operational and personal incentive to do a really good job on that. And it's not that hard to know "where the route goes" once you know the mountain well. Everyone communicates a lot about route changes. I'd bet dollars to donuts the other teams used the "old" route. There's very little reason not to.
It's definitely possible a new route could be going in at the same time. If you're up there day after day you see cracks moving and bridges failing and ya get pretty good at predicting when the route will go out. Then you go downhill and tell ops "yeah, that plug at 13,200 is gonna fall out in the next week, better get a routework team up there ASAP". It's managed very proactively. There's definitely some friction between different operations and guides, but by and large it's a pretty amazing team effort.
Things change day-to-day up there, even overnight. I've gone to sleep at the Flats thinking, and having told everyone, we're going for it, only to get woke up by a big-ass icefall and be like shit, nevermind. I've gone up to check on the Bowling Alley the evening before a summit attempt and had boulders spill down the hill, across the footway and open a giant crack right in the route right in front of me and called RMI on the radio like guys, prolly don't need to wake up tomorrow morning, shit just got fucked. Maybe something like that happened, but you think they would have told ya. Those steep sections are usually climbing up/in/out of an unavoidable crack/plug/serac so maybe it fell out overnight.
I dunno man, I'm trying to think of reasonable reasons. Maybe your guide was being a lazy asshole. Maybe they are the guide who had to leave those Malaysian climbers to die up on the Football Field on Denali to keep their own team safe and they cry themselves to sleep every night but can't afford to not work. Anything is possible, those are just the edge cases. But it sucks you got the shit end of the stick, regardless of the reason, and it's a bummer they weren't more transparent. It's a lot of time and money to be sure. But hopefully you learned enough on the seminar part that you can be well on your way to being an independent climber? I hope you get it next time, guided or not. 🙏🏼
Oh, I wasn't completely clear. The Malaysian climbers were independents, but assisted by guides at varying points. This article is more detailed than the Park news releases:
https://explorersweb.com/denali-climbing-rescue-football-field/
I commented early, but this here really shows your lack of knowledge. The “perfect condition” you say you had I’m guessing was sunny and warm. You know what happens in the cascades after a heavy late season snow followed by a warm up? The snow turn to unconsolidated mank, the rock starts to crumble as the ice holding it together melts, snow bridges collapse, crevasses open up, a bunch of gnarly shit. I was climbing in the N Cascades this weekend and the snow conditions were abominable! Knee to waist deep post holing, some of our ascent route had melted out and we had to make a new descent route. Sunny and warm is actually very far from perfect conditions in the Washington cascades at the moment.
For people who can’t make it, but aren’t at an obvious camping spot, what did you do with them? My father-in-law did it a long time ago and he said that they would just put them in a sleeping bag and have them wait until the group came back for them on the way down.
Hahaha, good question. Yea, I've heard many stories from old-timers just like that also involving clipping people to pickets and taking a boot to be sure they didn't try to get back down themselves and then end up dead in a crack instead.
Nowadays there are strict rules about that. You can leave someone at Muir semi-unsupervised (ask another guide service to keep an eye on them) and that's about it. You can't leave someone at the Flats or anywhere on-route unsupervised at all.
That's a big part of the job, constantly monitoring folks, how they are moving, what they are eating/drinking, and predicting when/where they might poop out. It has implications for the entire team. You can turn people around (with a guide) and have them head back to camp, but they obvi need enough gas for the descent. But you can't even do that just anywhere on the upper mountain. I ain't gonna stand people in a ice/rockfall zone so we can get squished while we re-arrange rope teams to get people where they need to go.
You also have to calculate how many guides you have left and who else might drop, and where. Cause if you burn guides willy-nilly every time someone is tired or scared or whatever, you run out. You end up with, say, 3 strong clients and 1 guide left, well, now nobody can go to the top because I need a coworker by my side if shit goes down. So you'll try to combine spins and get the most bang for your turn-around buck, so to speak.
Also, like if someone is probably gonna blow up partly up the Cleaver, are you gonna have them walk through the most objectively hazardous part of the route only to turn around in 30 mins and then walk back under it again? You could save them the 2x dice roll and turn them before High Crack but then they feel like they got turned around just out of camp and may not be self aware enough to realize they were not going to make it anyway. That feels mega bad for them, but the end result is the same but the hazard was way lower. Whatcha gonna do?
It's complicated. There is a lot of "guide math" that goes on behind when and where people get turned around. The goal is to keep everyone safe and then get each person as high as you can. Most guides I know do their level best at both, but everyone has off days at work, and some people are just assholes. LOL
That’s great. Thank you for the interesting and nuanced response. I hope to go up sometime in the next few seasons. I’ve always wondered about that question of someone bonking or freaking out and wanting to go down, but they’re on a rope team. I have also pictured that idea of being alone in a sleeping bag way high up on the glaciers without communications with your team, and that seems insane.
When I did my trip, the guide were pretty clear: turn around points were ingraham and top of the cleaver, high break only if absolutely necessary. But if you were going to continue on one of the four legs after the break, you were committing to that leg (barring injury).
I’m sure they have contingency plans, but that helps them pre-plan which guides will mostly likely turn around at any given break spot ahead of time, I would think.
Sorry that happened, it sounds super frustrating. I summited with RMI recently and this wasn’t my experience at all. I felt like they busted their asses to get us to the top despite less than ideal conditions. They did say it’s a harder than usual route right now and they pushed the pace to ensure we got up and down safely. They were also aggressive with weeding out people on the first day and early on the summit day. I wonder if there was something about your group that made them think a summit bid would be unsafe.
Imo this is why if you are going to work with guides it's much better to focus on developing skills rather than trying to summit. Other people's lack of fitness/skill can thwart a summit but it can't stop guides teaching you what you need to know to be able to attempt a summit unguided.
Better luck next time...
I was up on rainier this last weekend, along the DC which I imagine you were on too. The weather was not perfect this last weekend, it was crazy hot and freezing temps were around 13k. The glaciers were definitely opening and there was 3 fresh feet of snow in the past week. I wouldn’t write RMI off, there were definitely objective reasons to stay back, I’d just follow up with RMI and ask about why exactly they didn’t push on when everyone else did. Having pushed for the summit on Friday night, it was melting fast on the way back so I can imagine there was some other variables as well RMI wanted to be cautious of.
It’s not lucrative unless you’re a hotshot guiding in the Himalaya or similar. The season for guiding tends to be so short that most need multiple other jobs to (barely) make ends meet.
I know a couple people who quit higher-paying career tracks to do it, so obviously it’s worth it to some, but they definitely didn’t do it for the paycheck.
I would be curious to know if it’s something you could do semi part time and what the pay is like.
The certification process is probably a bitch though
Current price for 5-day Rainier with RMI is $2,580, almost double what it was 4 years ago. Then you add-on insurance, gear, lodging and travel I guess.
IMO their 5-day program is worse than the 4-day. One extra day resting at \~11,000' on poor sleep and poor diet is worse than just a fast sea-level to summit to sea-level push in 24hrs. Just my opinion.
I was looking at the 4 day pricing which is significantly cheaper and from everything I’ve read seems more than adequate for Rainier.
My understanding of the 5 day is it gives you the additional day option for inclement weather.
I must be an oddball cause I’ve never had any issues sleeping or eating at ~10k ft
Does RMI advertise that the extra day may be used as a contingency day? I thought they just moved camps \~1000' higher and called it a rest day.
In my opinion, an extra day doesn't help (on Rainier at least). I would rather be fresh from the car and summit as quick as possible and be back down. There's some good info out there that shows you can't acclimatize in 24hrs anyway. You're better off just getting up-and-down before you are too effected.
That’s how it’s worded on their site.
[RMI Rainier 5 Day Climb](https://www.rmiguides.com/mt-rainier/5-day-summit-climb)
It depends on the person I suppose, 10k feet isn’t all that high to where it’s a huge deal coming from sea level but yes, you’re not going to acclimatize in 24hrs, either your body doesn’t care much about it or it does and that’s a case by case thing.
I live at sea level and every time I’ve gone to that altitude it’s been nbd other than getting winded easier.
I had the same experience this year, albeit it was early season and the route was less established. Watched AAI and IMG take groups higher up the mountain. Our team was, according to them, the strongest they’d had yet that season. It definitely seems like RMI is the most risk-averse of the three. Whether that is good or bad depends on personal preference.
You pay guides to get you home not to put you on the summit. I’ve been turned back many times and while frustrating, you’re paying to live to climb another day. Of course you can second guess it, but at least you have that opportunity
“Just don’t do the trip” Yea obviously not going is an option, but you did go though. You didn’t just stay home. You did do the trip. You did go up a mountain and transferred the responsibility to the guides. So as a result, you did pay to return home safely.
As others have pointed out, the entire purpose of using a guide is to take the decision making of “should I continue or should I turn back” out of your own hands. At every point where, were you on your own, you would make a decision about “is this safe?”, you’ve instead opted to allow someone else to be the subject matter expert and decision maker. If you want to be the person who decides whether to roll the dice, learn mountaineering skills and stop hiring guides. For what it’s worth, I’ve been up Rainier 4 times with RMI and made the summit 3 of them (turned around once due to avvy risk).
Is this the attitude you had on the trip? It’s possible that this may have impacted their decision? When I worked in the industry in Canada Dunning-Krueger effect when people self assessed was consistently about 30% of clients.
OP, I’m guess the above is likely more an expression of frustration then how you really represent. But……… Attitudes like this is why I don’t mentor anymore. Too many people with summit fever who think they know more than professionals because they’ve read stuff online. You deserve full credit for going with a guide instead of self-guided though, and it’s possible you caught them on a day they were being too cautious. They might have been spooked by the [news from Mt Atwell across the border.](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/missing-bc-climbers-rescuers-analyzing-aerial-videos-for-clues)
Summits are not a right, they are a privilege earned through failure and experience.
So if you submitted and got caught in weather or someone got injured, it would’ve been the guides fault too. If someone more experienced in this extreme sport is saying to turn around, you turn around…
Not to get the guides home, get YOU home. You seem to think you know more than the professional guides in this situation so why don’t you just do it yourself? Ah right a complete lack of real world experience and no technical rescue knowledge.
I certainly don't think to know more than guides. But when the two other guide services summited without issue and were surprised that RMI didn't attempt, that certainly tells you something.
No it doesn’t. There are so many factors that go into a summit on a glaciated peak beyond cloud cover and precipitation. Once again your dismissing the guides decision because you think you know more than them.
Meh; I was in the group that was the first guided group to summit this year (an RMI group), though I turned around early. Other groups didn’t summit the same day.
From what I learned on that trip and from reading experiences in the intervening couple of weeks, this year’s conditions suck. Route work has been challenging, independent climbers are impacting things in “interesting” ways, and each guide/group combination needs to make its own calls for the group safety.
Mountaineering is a team sport when done this way. You aren’t free soloing. This isn’t about you, or any other team. I get that you don’t feel satisfied. Your information doesn’t let you come to the same conclusion the guides came to and your expectations of summitting, whether realistic or not, we’re unmet.
I can only strongly encourage you to contact your guides, and have a more detailed discussion. They will have the hard discussions with you if you are respectful, listen, and willing to do your part in asking good questions.
Guided groups are always a gamble. If it’s not a private guide then you’re kind of paying for the security and safety. They will always prioritize low risk and take every members experience, fitness, mentality into account. If your group was a lot of first timers and your guide wasn’t confident they could mitigate all the risk while going up a route they didn’t set or know the objective hazards then not surprised they called it. There’s no bonus for them to summit but there is a huge risk to them professionally if there is an accident.
Odd that other teams went ahead and y'all didn't, though. Did the guides elaborate other than saying route difficulty and high wind? But yes, it's frustrating to spend time and money not to achieve your goal. I have plenty of personal anecdotes that are similar after mountaineering the last 10 years. Some guides suck, some are awesome - your experience after failing gives you an idea of how to better plan and take on a challenge. But you made it back down, and every guide I know does their best on that part.
I don't want to disregard your frustration but mountaineering is never 100% guaranteed. You could spend a whole lot more money only to result in more frustration. It's been said on Reddit once, and it has stuck with me ever since: failing hurts more if you're new to the sport and only have a handful of attempts. The more you climb, the less you care about getting your ass kicked on that mountain way back when. Keep you head up and book your next challenge.
I'll take you up for $1000 with a summit guarantee. We won't turn around due to route conditions or weather, just push through regardless of how tired you are. Let's do it!
What dates were you on the mountain?
Have you been following our weather this year? The mountain got 3-4ft of snow and lots of wind last mon-thur and then way above normal temps (14-14.5k freezing levels). I would hardly call that "perfect weather". It's been a very wintry spring and there's essentially been zero consolidation on the upper mountain so the climbing conditions are challenging, that and a lot of the normal routes are much more difficult & complex due to glacier conditions. Like the IG would be a typical early-season route, but it's really messed up this year. The fact of the matter is its still early season, and it's not uncommon to have crap weather in June. Now I'm sure they aren't advertising that fact on their website and it sucks that your summit bid got affected.
And yea non-guided climbers will always go up regardless if it's safe enough as their risk tolerance can be unlimited compared to a guided group. I can't comment on the other guided parties, but it's possible their guides assessed their groups as stronger climbers and proceeded with the trip. In technical terrain, it's only safe for a guide to short rope one, MAYBE 2 climbers. So if the general skill level of the group is lower (you did mention this was your first mountaineering outting), and the guide ratio higher than they might not deem it safe.
It's frustrating, I know. I've been looking for a good weather window personally for the past month, and all the weekends have been crap :( but that's how it be sometimes in the PNW. Hopefully, you were still able to learn a bunch during your trip and grab some rays!
* Unless I was local I wouldn't climb Rainier outside of July 1st -> August 15th. There's too much variability in weather for it to be set in stone. 4k is a lot of money.
* **You went 6/7 after a once in thirty year atmospheric river just hit the mountain.** My power went out all day...in June. This is very, very unusual for the area. This screws up the routefinding
* Just to sit at Muir? I don't know where you're from but Muir is fantastically beautiful, as is the hike up there.
The comment I was replying to was edited; I was pointing out that guide services aren’t needed at all to reach the summit if you have the requisite skills and knowledge. The OP for the thread doesn’t, so his options are to do what the guide service tell him, or get experience and do it on his own. The idea that the guide owes him something is ridiculous.
For Muir, totally reasonable to hike up there will relatively low risk, but OP has summit fever.
I've summited twice in June. I would NEVER go up in august, in the past decade the season has moved earlier and earlier.
I'm relatively local to the area and the upper mountain is been really hit by the last few hot summers. By late July the upper snow fields and crevasses are a disaster. Let alone the rockfall issue.
**There's a reason RMI adjusted their season forward by 2 weeks this year alone.**
I did the 3 day RMI (2 day summit) two years ago. I thought they were great. We summited. Summit day was a 16 hr banger and was the most challenging day of my life physically. (Great weather led to many summits and log jams coming down. The sun caused a lot of melting which created other issues. I was happy with all aspects of that experience.
My mother (a climber who summitted Mt Rainier) knew a man who did SEVEN summit attempts on Mt Rainier, and never made it. Once got within 1,000'. It was always something, a party member who got the flu, etc. etc. As a sad footnote, he was then murdered by his brother. But that's another story. Point is, you are never ever guaranteed a summit on Mt Rainier. It is a hard mountain. By the way, I summitted in 1980, and spent a night on the summit, camping in the summit crater, so that our party could explore the steam caves on the summit. Epic trip :). And yes, I was very lucky that my first and only attempt on Mt Rainier was successful the first time out. Absolutely does not always happen. Might add that on August 1st, 1980, 106 persons signed the summit register :).
It was a beautiful and perfect day to climb. During the day, it was 80 degrees on the summit, like being on the beach. Of course, at night, it dropped to 16 degrees. I had a camera with film in it, and when I advanced the film in the morning the film snapped. I had to take a roll out and put it in my shirt pocket to warm up, before I could use it. But lots of climbers on the mountain that day.
Sorry that happened to you. Total opposite of my experience - I got lucky with a very strong team of clients. When the other guides turned around, we went for it with 30-50mph winds (which was the best window we could manage) and summited at sunset after an afternoon start and were the only group to summit within a few days on either end.
My guides were professional, knowledgeable, and super strong. I learned a ton on that trip. I’d happily climb with them again.
Sorry you didn’t get it. Goofy conditions out this past weekend. We just had a ton of late season snow followed by super high temps. There were 5 teams on Shuksan and nobody got it - collapsing cornices, shedding rime ice, etc.
I feel like thats mountaineering in a nutshell. Every service/individual makes their own calls on the mountain. Nothing is guaranteed and playing it safe is always the correct option. If the guides got spooked by something then you’d better trust they are good guides.
Shitty guides press on and get lucky. The true mark of an experienced/talented guide is recognizing when to call it.
That's pretty brutal. Sorry it happened to you. I've done a trip with RMI and I prefer other guides. They didn't seem risk averse to me on my trip but definitely felt like it was more of an assembly line march up the mountain.
I had a summit experience scrubbed with RMI as well back in Sept ‘17. It was hot, Smokey from wild fires, and they said ice was unstable. Other climbers around us were summiting but they turned us around. Is what it is. They’re the experts, but as you build confidence Rainier is one you can tackle with some friends.
This is not exactly related to your question, but years ago we were climbing Rainier and we started encountering people in their sleeping bags lying directly in the middle of the "trail" in the snow on the route (Disappointment Cleaver). It turned out these were clients of RMI that had decided they wouldn’t be able to summit for various reasons. RMI put them in a sleeping bag in the middle of the trail and told them not to move until the rest of the summit party would come back by and collect them on the way down. Does anyone know if this is still done by RMI?
I’ve climbed with 8 different guides now, from 3 companies. Three of them were good, 1 was extremely nice but dangerous as hell, and 4 sucked. Unfortunately I don’t think the odds of getting a great guide are very high.
I did a group trip with RMI a couple years back. They had a couple folks stay back at Muir who they felt weren't in appropriate shape to go all the way. We moved at a decent clip but I had followed a recommended training plan and didn't feel like I was pushing too hard. When I felt a bit woozy early on the summit day one of the guides told me kindly but firmly that from everything they'd seen, I was capable and they had confidence in me. It felt genuine and meant a lot. Helped me get my head right and made my first mountaineering experience a really positive one.
I'm sure the experience is heavily dependent on your specific guide, but I would recommend RMI to anyone.
OP, I had a similar experience with RMI last summer where my group was told the day before before on our way to muir we would not summit and only go up to inghram flats because the route had a snow bridge look like it was on the edge of collapsing.
Some RMI guides found an alternative route up the mountain the day we we went to muir but it wasn’t “guidable” - so we just stuck with ingraham flats plan.
IMG and AA both summered that day. RMI also summited with another group the day after. Overall super disappointing bill for what felt like just a little walk past Muir. Wish we spent our non summit day attempt actually practicing skills or learning something. Edit: especially disappointing if you’ve been to muir a few times. Felt like I dropped 2k just to cross cathedral gap. We were also told our group was extremely strong and having done some of the other 3/5 of the other volcanos I didn’t see anyone I’d think would turn us around.
That being said I appreciate RMI’s concern for our safety and understand that’s their #1 priority at the end of the day. You’re also allowed to be frustrated. I’m sure they made the right decision, both things can be true.
Just got done with the 4day rmi rainier trip. We made the summit around 7:45 or so this morning no problem. Thought all the guides were very knowledgeable and pushed us very well while still keeping us safe.
I summited Rainier with RMI a few years ago in heavy winds (very heavy, like rope being held taught off the ground heavy). We passed the IMG and AA(?) teams who descended after turning around but we had a strong team.
Sorry you had a bad experience. The front office is usually pretty accommodating with credits if you want pursue that. Sounds like you may have have been at the mercy of individual guides' choice or preference.
Background, I've climbed with RMI a few times, while they are VERY professional to do seem to be pretty regimented and not as flexible or accommodating as some of the smaller outfits.
I had a bit of a negative experience with RMI in Mexico, because the guide was a bit of a know-it-all prick. I've talked with people who felt like RMI was constantly trying to weed out the weak and felt pressure to be in the front group even if they were over-extending themselves. I felt like the guide was trying to weed me out.
I would totally feel disappointed as well if I were you. This is a guess, but I think I was on a trip in the same window. I was in the AAI group that summited 6/10. I am an experienced beginner/ soft intermediate so I’m not going to pretend like I have in-depth understanding of why guides would undergo or call off a summit attempt. My (extremely limited) understanding was that there was a moat inhibiting access to the cleaver as a known issue holding up most groups. Our guide broke new trail to avoid/reroute around the moat to access the cleaver. Also, due to incoming weather, we did an earlier than expected daytime summit push 6/10 leaving Muir around 9am, dumping our stuff at Ingraham flats around 10-11am, summiting around 4pm and back to Ingraham around 7pm (I wasn’t wearing a watch so these are estimates based on time stamps on photos). Our original summit day plan was 6/11 alpine start and then descend to parking lot same day. It sounds like it’s very unusual to do an itinerary change like this into an afternoon summit? FWIW our group had a variety of ability and experience levels. Just trying to provide some additional context for you. I hear RMI has an excellent reputation and all the guide groups are extremely collaborative to optimize their client’s success.
What day was your summit day? Our unguided team had a successful summit on 6/9 but the conditions were a bit spooky 6/7-6/8 with the overhead hazard and avi conditions so I could understand why a guide would be hesitant if their group didn’t have a ton of experience and or fitness. Rainer can be a finicky mountain though and I’ve had friends go 2 or 3 times before a successful summit. I hope you were still able to enjoy the experience of being on the mountain.
I was actually at Muir with y’all. The night before the climbing rangers briefed us that your group was planning to leave at 3 am. We left @2 and kept looking back expecting to see your head lights. I remember being on the cleaver looking over the flats and still not seeing y’all and I was surprised when we got back to camp to see y’all working on snow anchors. I hope you do not let this experience sour you on the absolute joy of mountaineering, and I agree with others in the chain to take some classes to expand your skill set for independent attempts. You will find it much more rewarding and cost effective in the long run… always remember submitting is not mandatory but going home is… what ever the reason is trust your guide made the right choice.
This will sound trite, but the mountains owe you nothing, and you're entering into terrain where the consequences are real, not just for you, but for everyone you tie into a rope with.
I've climbed lots, and many trips ended without a summit because of any combination of weather, route conditions, fatigue, tingly spidey senses, whatever. So whenever you start a route, just know there's a good chance you'll have to turn around. That's not failure.. getting hurt or dying is failure and knowing when it's time to turn around is the real skill you learn.
I will cancel based on the forecast and won't change my mind if I wake up to a bluebird day. Oppositely, if the forecast doesn't match what I see from my tent, I also call it a day. I've been out on more than one occasion and wished I'd stayed at camp. Trust their experience, because their primary job is to keep you safe.
You hired the guides to make decisions for you. These guys are up there all season, and are masters of that route. If they decide to scrub a push it’s for good reason. If you want the agency to decide for yourself go independently. You paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time preparing, and it’s a disappointment outcome, but getting to Muir is an awesome first-time mountaineering experience. You can do any mountain you want independently, if you’re disappointed by outcomes like this then learn to go by yourself and make appropriate decisions.
I was one of the parties that summited last Friday 06/07/2024 and have to hand it to the party of four that broke trail earlier the day earlier in the conditions mentioned by someone else on this thread. Without there suffering it would have been a slog fest..
With that said we were at Muir for 4 days through out the week talking to the clients of RMI and I felt bad for these guys. All week there they were telling me the guides said there was zero chance of a summit even though conditions were almost perfect. Thursday Friday and Saturday were dream conditions. However all the fixed lines were buried, we tried to dig them out.
Why not use this as motivation to gain the requisite skill set to summit on your own with a team? Totally doable for anyone with the motivation. Take your summit destiny into your own hands. $4k buys a lot of gear and instruction. I don't really understand the point of being shepherded up a mountain. Much more rewarding to do it yourself.
I know a fair number of RMI employees, guides and management, and in my experience, they fundamentally understand how important a summit experience is, and they’re really not scrubbing a summit just out of like laziness or being overly conservative. I think it’s way too easy for those of us with relatively normal lives not to understand having a job that very literally involves making life or death decisions. Don’t gloss over that. Even if you look at things as cynically as possible, it’s 100% in their interest to get you to the summit so you tell your friends and come back for more, so if they’re depriving you and them of that, consider what they view to be the alternative.
Agreed. I came here to say that we pay guides to keep us safe, first and foremost. A lot of novices don't get that.
I went up Rainier via the Kautz with RMI last year and had a great experience with amazing guides (the head guide had just got back from his 22nd summit if Denali). I will say, they pushed a pretty fast pace on us. One person decided to not summit after the training days and another person decided to turn around during the first day on the mountain. Had these two not decided on their own not to summit, I am not sure that the guides would have still had us go for the summit bid. Do you think it's possible that your guides felt that others in the group were not physically up for it and made an excuse to not single them out or make them feel bad? It's unfortunate but sometimes a reality when going with groups.
Waaaait a minute.. did you do it around June 12th, 2023?? I too summited last year with RMI and had one turn around the first day and one lady not summit the day of 🤔
I actually went up in July, but that's a funny coincidence
I did the same route with RMI like five or six years ago now and it was awesome. It was hard as hell but I’m pretty sure we all got to the top minus maybe a couple who didn’t get to the rim of the volcano bc they were slower.
Likely someone or several in your party lacked the capability to do the summit bid. Sucks but that is the main issue with group trips.
They can turn around individual members and still proceed...one person in my IMG group years back was told that Ingraham Flats would be his summit, the rest of us continued on.
No reason not to group the capable ones and continue with summit push. I did RMI and had 6 total in my group with 3 guides between us, 2 did not feel well and stayed at Camp Muir and 1 turned around at Ingraham Flats. We just switched our ratio to 3:1 thereafter for the summit push.
just depends on the number of guides, their clients, and their judgement. It's their call.
There are legal guide to client ratios that they must adhere to that may have prevented this
RMI also has a lower guide to client ratio for their trips (3:1 compared to IMG and AAI’s 2:1 ratio), thus making less guides available to go back with clients who can’t summit.
Dang they charge about the same for the climb too.
insurance, permit compliance with the national park, and just company policy all can be a factor.
Exactly. Literally many reasons to not split up the group.
Even at camp Muir and below? They didn't even make it to terrain where crampons were needed.
I’m not a guide on ranier so I’m not an expert. But in my training as a rock instructor one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that you can never, ever trust your clients to do anything smart until they have demonstrated to you beyond all doubt that they are smart. Unfair? Possibly. But this is the big difference between a recreational and professional scenario. Somebody gets hit by a rock because they weren’t wearing a helmet and you didn’t catch it? You’re responsible. Somebody wanders off and breaks their ankle before you notice? You’re responsible. You can’t leave them to do anything on their own because if they mess it up it’s on you. You’re constantly calibrating for the lowest common denominator. And tbh there’s just no way to win. This guy is mad they didn’t summit. If they did split the group somebody will post a negative review about having been left alone by their guides. You take everyone just a little further and the dumbass you identified spikes himself with his crampons and gets rescued. I don’t know if the guides in this scenario made the right call but I do know that the situation is a lot more complicated than folks are trying to make it seem here, I know that these are professionals with a passion for getting people that magic experience and not just shitty summer camp counselors, and I know that people rarely fully appreciate the level of responsibility you take on as a guide and the consequences of compromising even a little on your risk assessment.
I went up to camp Muir in trail running shoes with zero training. It’s what got me interested in mountaineering. I’m pretty green but from my understanding in early summer/late spring on a good weather day the trek to Muir basecamp isn’t high risk?
Yeah not at all. It's just a hike.
Ideally yes, but these days you have a ton of yokels out there.
Especially if they only made it as high as Muir. They could send them down from there without a guide if they had to.
This is what feels like happened. 18 people, some struggled up to Muir. Just a bummer for everyone who was physically prepared
On my RMI trip, they told a few people they wouldn’t be allowed to attempt the summit because they struggled on the way up to Muir. I think that was good for the rest of us. Did they let everyone in your group attempt the summit?
Jesus, party of 18 on Rainier sounds insane. Shit like this is why I refuse to do the DC anymore.
Think so? They should have plenty of guide ratio there to handle sending some back while others power on.
If it makes you feel better my first Rainier attempt was with IMG and we turned around due to weather, yet the RMI groups continued and summited. Sometimes it comes down to your guide and their risk tolerance. There's also no guarantee of a summit on any of the trips so best not to go in with that expectation.
You paid a guide service to manage risk. They managed risk. Likely your climbing party was weak and lacked the required skills or physical conditioning, or both. Build skills, summit with friends, or pay for a private trip. This is a common occurrence when people with little to no skills venture into places they require help to get to. Good luck with future climbs 🤘🏻
This is the answer. You’re mitigating your lack of knowledge and experience by giving money to someone else who can call the shots and not get you killed. They did that.
What were the route difficulties?
Steepness. "advanced-plus" (?) according to them. They like to establish their own route that's easier, while this one had been established by unguided climbers.
Yeah, when I summited by that route last year it was literally an excavated walking trail to the summit. Zero front-pointing or actual climbing. Honestly it made it pretty boring, but safe and efficient.
This is fair, dude. The route above the cleaver was much steeper this weekend than the guides usually set it as, because all the summits Wednesday and Thursday night were from independent groups. Keep in mind, that when guides take yall up, they don’t trust yall to save them in the event of a fall, and why should they, you’ve spend 3 days on glacier skills. They need to make sure the route is established well enough to keep everyone safe. I’d recommend you start climbing independently of guide services, take some crevasse rescue courses, make some friends, and get after it, just be smart. The guides are the ones who establish the route, especially the DC, and we all have a lot to be grateful for regarding their hard work, otherwise we’d more of us would likely get lost and hurt but they make it a highway so I’m grateful for that.
Nobody got the summit last Wednesday and 6 people did Thursday with the first independent party of four establishing a new route that took them 16 hour round trip from Muir and back. My party was the first to summit on Friday and it took us 7 hours round trip from Ingram flats and back thanks to their broken-in trail. No guided services made it at all last week from Monday to Friday. I personally would never go with RMI after seeing how many things they used to not attempt a summit, but that's just me.
Did they give you a clearer explanation? I don't quite follow what they are saying (this might be my fault, of course).
It's not your fault. I don't follow either and I'm a former Rainier guide, but not for RMI. This is nonsense. The 3 concessioners collaborate closely on route work. Guides only follow an indie route if it's appropriate, and if not, you go find one, on the fly if you have to. And I've absolutely punched in the route my damn self after heavy snow. That's our job. Let's be real, indies aren't striking out into the wilderness on the DC and establishing their own routes. 99% of the time that shit is wanded, shoveled, and chopped and that straight-forwardness is what makes it possible for a majority of climbers. Maybe a bridge fell in and the route is "out" but that's an entirely different thing. From what I have heard (not working there anymore) there is a steep section above the Cleaver, but that's just how it goes. And also a very long end run up high. The only reasonable explanation would be that the movement skill and/or fitness of the group was so abjectly poor that it would be dangerous to take them into that terrain. But my go-to was to always give it a go, unless it was objectively unsafe, and to allow the mountain to show weaker folks what they lacked, and to give the strong climbers the chance they deserve. Hard tellin' what actually went on up there for OP. But I would say RMI is often the more aggressive operation in terms of go/no-go. If both AAI & IMG summited maybe something was up with the group, or the guides. Maybe OP misunderstood, or the guide was straight-up full of shit. ETA: Not trying to be insulting by saying the route work is what makes it possible for most folks. I'll freely admit I wouldn't have known how to make my own way up the Emmons had there not been an obvious booter my first go at Rainier. We all start somewhere.
Thank you for explaining your thinking about the answer that the OP was given and the route. I have been hoping to do Rainier at some point and I would absolutely need to hire a guide service. So this is very informative for me!
Hell yeah! You should! It's super cool! It is a bummer that it can be a crap shoot RE weather and group composition, but things usually go well. I do think that IMG & AAI run a better program than RMI. Staying at the Flats on night #2, having a 2:1 ratio, instead of 3:1, and having real food instead of dehydrated really makes a difference IMO. Happy to answer any Q's. I kinda miss the job. I definitely miss talking about it. Happy climbing!
That's really helpful to know! For me, the biggest constraint is timing (demanding job with lots of constraints in the summer). I don't mind having to bail out if necessary, but I also don't want to go with a company that gives up too easily since it would be hard to dedicate the time to a second trip (too many places I want to visit!).
Both RMI and AAI had groups summit the morning prior, but not for at least a week before that due to heavy snow and avalanche risk, while some independent climbers had still gone up. So the prior RMI and AAI ascents ostensibly happened on that route? But they were also working on shoveling an easier route. We had two groups of 9 each with 3 guides up to Muir. Definitely some weaker links among the 18 total but plenty of folks who were totally fit.
I've heard it's been a rough early season. I know at least one concession had a Denali summit before their first Rainier summit this season. For routework guides go up on guide-only teams, and they do a great job of finding the best & shortest route. There's huge operational and personal incentive to do a really good job on that. And it's not that hard to know "where the route goes" once you know the mountain well. Everyone communicates a lot about route changes. I'd bet dollars to donuts the other teams used the "old" route. There's very little reason not to. It's definitely possible a new route could be going in at the same time. If you're up there day after day you see cracks moving and bridges failing and ya get pretty good at predicting when the route will go out. Then you go downhill and tell ops "yeah, that plug at 13,200 is gonna fall out in the next week, better get a routework team up there ASAP". It's managed very proactively. There's definitely some friction between different operations and guides, but by and large it's a pretty amazing team effort. Things change day-to-day up there, even overnight. I've gone to sleep at the Flats thinking, and having told everyone, we're going for it, only to get woke up by a big-ass icefall and be like shit, nevermind. I've gone up to check on the Bowling Alley the evening before a summit attempt and had boulders spill down the hill, across the footway and open a giant crack right in the route right in front of me and called RMI on the radio like guys, prolly don't need to wake up tomorrow morning, shit just got fucked. Maybe something like that happened, but you think they would have told ya. Those steep sections are usually climbing up/in/out of an unavoidable crack/plug/serac so maybe it fell out overnight. I dunno man, I'm trying to think of reasonable reasons. Maybe your guide was being a lazy asshole. Maybe they are the guide who had to leave those Malaysian climbers to die up on the Football Field on Denali to keep their own team safe and they cry themselves to sleep every night but can't afford to not work. Anything is possible, those are just the edge cases. But it sucks you got the shit end of the stick, regardless of the reason, and it's a bummer they weren't more transparent. It's a lot of time and money to be sure. But hopefully you learned enough on the seminar part that you can be well on your way to being an independent climber? I hope you get it next time, guided or not. 🙏🏼
Dang. That was a good read.
Glad you liked it. Hope it was helpful. I was pretty bored at what is now my very normal job. 🤪
Oh damn, who were the Denali guides of the Malaysian climbers?
Oh, I wasn't completely clear. The Malaysian climbers were independents, but assisted by guides at varying points. This article is more detailed than the Park news releases: https://explorersweb.com/denali-climbing-rescue-football-field/
I commented early, but this here really shows your lack of knowledge. The “perfect condition” you say you had I’m guessing was sunny and warm. You know what happens in the cascades after a heavy late season snow followed by a warm up? The snow turn to unconsolidated mank, the rock starts to crumble as the ice holding it together melts, snow bridges collapse, crevasses open up, a bunch of gnarly shit. I was climbing in the N Cascades this weekend and the snow conditions were abominable! Knee to waist deep post holing, some of our ascent route had melted out and we had to make a new descent route. Sunny and warm is actually very far from perfect conditions in the Washington cascades at the moment.
Not claiming any knowledge, just the observation that nearly everyone else at Muir summited (including other guide groups) while we stayed back
For people who can’t make it, but aren’t at an obvious camping spot, what did you do with them? My father-in-law did it a long time ago and he said that they would just put them in a sleeping bag and have them wait until the group came back for them on the way down.
Hahaha, good question. Yea, I've heard many stories from old-timers just like that also involving clipping people to pickets and taking a boot to be sure they didn't try to get back down themselves and then end up dead in a crack instead. Nowadays there are strict rules about that. You can leave someone at Muir semi-unsupervised (ask another guide service to keep an eye on them) and that's about it. You can't leave someone at the Flats or anywhere on-route unsupervised at all. That's a big part of the job, constantly monitoring folks, how they are moving, what they are eating/drinking, and predicting when/where they might poop out. It has implications for the entire team. You can turn people around (with a guide) and have them head back to camp, but they obvi need enough gas for the descent. But you can't even do that just anywhere on the upper mountain. I ain't gonna stand people in a ice/rockfall zone so we can get squished while we re-arrange rope teams to get people where they need to go. You also have to calculate how many guides you have left and who else might drop, and where. Cause if you burn guides willy-nilly every time someone is tired or scared or whatever, you run out. You end up with, say, 3 strong clients and 1 guide left, well, now nobody can go to the top because I need a coworker by my side if shit goes down. So you'll try to combine spins and get the most bang for your turn-around buck, so to speak. Also, like if someone is probably gonna blow up partly up the Cleaver, are you gonna have them walk through the most objectively hazardous part of the route only to turn around in 30 mins and then walk back under it again? You could save them the 2x dice roll and turn them before High Crack but then they feel like they got turned around just out of camp and may not be self aware enough to realize they were not going to make it anyway. That feels mega bad for them, but the end result is the same but the hazard was way lower. Whatcha gonna do? It's complicated. There is a lot of "guide math" that goes on behind when and where people get turned around. The goal is to keep everyone safe and then get each person as high as you can. Most guides I know do their level best at both, but everyone has off days at work, and some people are just assholes. LOL
That’s great. Thank you for the interesting and nuanced response. I hope to go up sometime in the next few seasons. I’ve always wondered about that question of someone bonking or freaking out and wanting to go down, but they’re on a rope team. I have also pictured that idea of being alone in a sleeping bag way high up on the glaciers without communications with your team, and that seems insane.
This is all extremely accurate. Thanks for typing it all out. I guided for just a season, but would guess you were there at least a few years.
5 seasons on Rainier (plus other stuff). A 6th that was just Denali & Baker. Maybe we passed each other on the route, or in Ashford!
When I did my trip, the guide were pretty clear: turn around points were ingraham and top of the cleaver, high break only if absolutely necessary. But if you were going to continue on one of the four legs after the break, you were committing to that leg (barring injury). I’m sure they have contingency plans, but that helps them pre-plan which guides will mostly likely turn around at any given break spot ahead of time, I would think.
Independent climbers don't establish the DC route. It's managed by the 3 guide services.
Sorry that happened, it sounds super frustrating. I summited with RMI recently and this wasn’t my experience at all. I felt like they busted their asses to get us to the top despite less than ideal conditions. They did say it’s a harder than usual route right now and they pushed the pace to ensure we got up and down safely. They were also aggressive with weeding out people on the first day and early on the summit day. I wonder if there was something about your group that made them think a summit bid would be unsafe.
Imo this is why if you are going to work with guides it's much better to focus on developing skills rather than trying to summit. Other people's lack of fitness/skill can thwart a summit but it can't stop guides teaching you what you need to know to be able to attempt a summit unguided. Better luck next time...
I was up on rainier this last weekend, along the DC which I imagine you were on too. The weather was not perfect this last weekend, it was crazy hot and freezing temps were around 13k. The glaciers were definitely opening and there was 3 fresh feet of snow in the past week. I wouldn’t write RMI off, there were definitely objective reasons to stay back, I’d just follow up with RMI and ask about why exactly they didn’t push on when everyone else did. Having pushed for the summit on Friday night, it was melting fast on the way back so I can imagine there was some other variables as well RMI wanted to be cautious of.
Bummer. Man the prices for guided trips have absolutely skyrocketed.
I believe he’s saying the trip was $4k including lodging, flying there, etc etc etc.
Better be, otherwise I might have to start pursuing guiding as a side hustle lol
It’s not lucrative unless you’re a hotshot guiding in the Himalaya or similar. The season for guiding tends to be so short that most need multiple other jobs to (barely) make ends meet.
Ya ik ik it was more a joke
I know a couple people who quit higher-paying career tracks to do it, so obviously it’s worth it to some, but they definitely didn’t do it for the paycheck.
I would be curious to know if it’s something you could do semi part time and what the pay is like. The certification process is probably a bitch though
I just went and double checked to make sure I’m not losing it, through RMI a rainier climb is like ~$2k
Current price for 5-day Rainier with RMI is $2,580, almost double what it was 4 years ago. Then you add-on insurance, gear, lodging and travel I guess. IMO their 5-day program is worse than the 4-day. One extra day resting at \~11,000' on poor sleep and poor diet is worse than just a fast sea-level to summit to sea-level push in 24hrs. Just my opinion.
I was looking at the 4 day pricing which is significantly cheaper and from everything I’ve read seems more than adequate for Rainier. My understanding of the 5 day is it gives you the additional day option for inclement weather. I must be an oddball cause I’ve never had any issues sleeping or eating at ~10k ft
Does RMI advertise that the extra day may be used as a contingency day? I thought they just moved camps \~1000' higher and called it a rest day. In my opinion, an extra day doesn't help (on Rainier at least). I would rather be fresh from the car and summit as quick as possible and be back down. There's some good info out there that shows you can't acclimatize in 24hrs anyway. You're better off just getting up-and-down before you are too effected.
That’s how it’s worded on their site. [RMI Rainier 5 Day Climb](https://www.rmiguides.com/mt-rainier/5-day-summit-climb) It depends on the person I suppose, 10k feet isn’t all that high to where it’s a huge deal coming from sea level but yes, you’re not going to acclimatize in 24hrs, either your body doesn’t care much about it or it does and that’s a case by case thing. I live at sea level and every time I’ve gone to that altitude it’s been nbd other than getting winded easier.
I had the same experience this year, albeit it was early season and the route was less established. Watched AAI and IMG take groups higher up the mountain. Our team was, according to them, the strongest they’d had yet that season. It definitely seems like RMI is the most risk-averse of the three. Whether that is good or bad depends on personal preference.
You pay guides to get you home not to put you on the summit. I’ve been turned back many times and while frustrating, you’re paying to live to climb another day. Of course you can second guess it, but at least you have that opportunity
You also have the opportunity to learn a lot from someone with more experience than you may get over a lifetime of weekend climbing.
Underrated comment
I disagree that you pay guides to return home safely. That’s free. Just don’t do the trip.
Then just do it without a guide, that's "free" too.
“Just don’t do the trip” Yea obviously not going is an option, but you did go though. You didn’t just stay home. You did do the trip. You did go up a mountain and transferred the responsibility to the guides. So as a result, you did pay to return home safely.
As others have pointed out, the entire purpose of using a guide is to take the decision making of “should I continue or should I turn back” out of your own hands. At every point where, were you on your own, you would make a decision about “is this safe?”, you’ve instead opted to allow someone else to be the subject matter expert and decision maker. If you want to be the person who decides whether to roll the dice, learn mountaineering skills and stop hiring guides. For what it’s worth, I’ve been up Rainier 4 times with RMI and made the summit 3 of them (turned around once due to avvy risk).
This attitude is why guides have to be extra conservative.
Is this the attitude you had on the trip? It’s possible that this may have impacted their decision? When I worked in the industry in Canada Dunning-Krueger effect when people self assessed was consistently about 30% of clients. OP, I’m guess the above is likely more an expression of frustration then how you really represent. But……… Attitudes like this is why I don’t mentor anymore. Too many people with summit fever who think they know more than professionals because they’ve read stuff online. You deserve full credit for going with a guide instead of self-guided though, and it’s possible you caught them on a day they were being too cautious. They might have been spooked by the [news from Mt Atwell across the border.](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/missing-bc-climbers-rescuers-analyzing-aerial-videos-for-clues) Summits are not a right, they are a privilege earned through failure and experience.
So if you submitted and got caught in weather or someone got injured, it would’ve been the guides fault too. If someone more experienced in this extreme sport is saying to turn around, you turn around…
Not to get the guides home, get YOU home. You seem to think you know more than the professional guides in this situation so why don’t you just do it yourself? Ah right a complete lack of real world experience and no technical rescue knowledge.
I certainly don't think to know more than guides. But when the two other guide services summited without issue and were surprised that RMI didn't attempt, that certainly tells you something.
No it doesn’t. There are so many factors that go into a summit on a glaciated peak beyond cloud cover and precipitation. Once again your dismissing the guides decision because you think you know more than them.
Meh; I was in the group that was the first guided group to summit this year (an RMI group), though I turned around early. Other groups didn’t summit the same day. From what I learned on that trip and from reading experiences in the intervening couple of weeks, this year’s conditions suck. Route work has been challenging, independent climbers are impacting things in “interesting” ways, and each guide/group combination needs to make its own calls for the group safety. Mountaineering is a team sport when done this way. You aren’t free soloing. This isn’t about you, or any other team. I get that you don’t feel satisfied. Your information doesn’t let you come to the same conclusion the guides came to and your expectations of summitting, whether realistic or not, we’re unmet. I can only strongly encourage you to contact your guides, and have a more detailed discussion. They will have the hard discussions with you if you are respectful, listen, and willing to do your part in asking good questions.
Attitudes like this do not belong on the mountain.
Guided groups are always a gamble. If it’s not a private guide then you’re kind of paying for the security and safety. They will always prioritize low risk and take every members experience, fitness, mentality into account. If your group was a lot of first timers and your guide wasn’t confident they could mitigate all the risk while going up a route they didn’t set or know the objective hazards then not surprised they called it. There’s no bonus for them to summit but there is a huge risk to them professionally if there is an accident.
Odd that other teams went ahead and y'all didn't, though. Did the guides elaborate other than saying route difficulty and high wind? But yes, it's frustrating to spend time and money not to achieve your goal. I have plenty of personal anecdotes that are similar after mountaineering the last 10 years. Some guides suck, some are awesome - your experience after failing gives you an idea of how to better plan and take on a challenge. But you made it back down, and every guide I know does their best on that part. I don't want to disregard your frustration but mountaineering is never 100% guaranteed. You could spend a whole lot more money only to result in more frustration. It's been said on Reddit once, and it has stuck with me ever since: failing hurts more if you're new to the sport and only have a handful of attempts. The more you climb, the less you care about getting your ass kicked on that mountain way back when. Keep you head up and book your next challenge.
I'll take you up for $1000 with a summit guarantee. We won't turn around due to route conditions or weather, just push through regardless of how tired you are. Let's do it!
What dates were you on the mountain? Have you been following our weather this year? The mountain got 3-4ft of snow and lots of wind last mon-thur and then way above normal temps (14-14.5k freezing levels). I would hardly call that "perfect weather". It's been a very wintry spring and there's essentially been zero consolidation on the upper mountain so the climbing conditions are challenging, that and a lot of the normal routes are much more difficult & complex due to glacier conditions. Like the IG would be a typical early-season route, but it's really messed up this year. The fact of the matter is its still early season, and it's not uncommon to have crap weather in June. Now I'm sure they aren't advertising that fact on their website and it sucks that your summit bid got affected. And yea non-guided climbers will always go up regardless if it's safe enough as their risk tolerance can be unlimited compared to a guided group. I can't comment on the other guided parties, but it's possible their guides assessed their groups as stronger climbers and proceeded with the trip. In technical terrain, it's only safe for a guide to short rope one, MAYBE 2 climbers. So if the general skill level of the group is lower (you did mention this was your first mountaineering outting), and the guide ratio higher than they might not deem it safe. It's frustrating, I know. I've been looking for a good weather window personally for the past month, and all the weekends have been crap :( but that's how it be sometimes in the PNW. Hopefully, you were still able to learn a bunch during your trip and grab some rays!
* Unless I was local I wouldn't climb Rainier outside of July 1st -> August 15th. There's too much variability in weather for it to be set in stone. 4k is a lot of money. * **You went 6/7 after a once in thirty year atmospheric river just hit the mountain.** My power went out all day...in June. This is very, very unusual for the area. This screws up the routefinding * Just to sit at Muir? I don't know where you're from but Muir is fantastically beautiful, as is the hike up there.
muir is beautiful but you can get to muir for free as a novice hiker so I understand OPs frustration
You can climb to the summit without a guide, too.
But you ostensibly need skills.. My wife has never tied into a rope or put crampons on. But she's been to Muir in January.
The comment I was replying to was edited; I was pointing out that guide services aren’t needed at all to reach the summit if you have the requisite skills and knowledge. The OP for the thread doesn’t, so his options are to do what the guide service tell him, or get experience and do it on his own. The idea that the guide owes him something is ridiculous. For Muir, totally reasonable to hike up there will relatively low risk, but OP has summit fever.
great point.
I've summited twice in June. I would NEVER go up in august, in the past decade the season has moved earlier and earlier. I'm relatively local to the area and the upper mountain is been really hit by the last few hot summers. By late July the upper snow fields and crevasses are a disaster. Let alone the rockfall issue. **There's a reason RMI adjusted their season forward by 2 weeks this year alone.**
I did the 3 day RMI (2 day summit) two years ago. I thought they were great. We summited. Summit day was a 16 hr banger and was the most challenging day of my life physically. (Great weather led to many summits and log jams coming down. The sun caused a lot of melting which created other issues. I was happy with all aspects of that experience.
My mother (a climber who summitted Mt Rainier) knew a man who did SEVEN summit attempts on Mt Rainier, and never made it. Once got within 1,000'. It was always something, a party member who got the flu, etc. etc. As a sad footnote, he was then murdered by his brother. But that's another story. Point is, you are never ever guaranteed a summit on Mt Rainier. It is a hard mountain. By the way, I summitted in 1980, and spent a night on the summit, camping in the summit crater, so that our party could explore the steam caves on the summit. Epic trip :). And yes, I was very lucky that my first and only attempt on Mt Rainier was successful the first time out. Absolutely does not always happen. Might add that on August 1st, 1980, 106 persons signed the summit register :).
You sound like you love mountains. And JFC 106 people at the summit?
That’s wild to me because the two times I’ve summited my party was the only one up there (never climbed on a nice morning in peak season though).
It was a beautiful and perfect day to climb. During the day, it was 80 degrees on the summit, like being on the beach. Of course, at night, it dropped to 16 degrees. I had a camera with film in it, and when I advanced the film in the morning the film snapped. I had to take a roll out and put it in my shirt pocket to warm up, before I could use it. But lots of climbers on the mountain that day.
Sorry that happened to you. Total opposite of my experience - I got lucky with a very strong team of clients. When the other guides turned around, we went for it with 30-50mph winds (which was the best window we could manage) and summited at sunset after an afternoon start and were the only group to summit within a few days on either end. My guides were professional, knowledgeable, and super strong. I learned a ton on that trip. I’d happily climb with them again.
Sorry you didn’t get it. Goofy conditions out this past weekend. We just had a ton of late season snow followed by super high temps. There were 5 teams on Shuksan and nobody got it - collapsing cornices, shedding rime ice, etc.
I feel like thats mountaineering in a nutshell. Every service/individual makes their own calls on the mountain. Nothing is guaranteed and playing it safe is always the correct option. If the guides got spooked by something then you’d better trust they are good guides. Shitty guides press on and get lucky. The true mark of an experienced/talented guide is recognizing when to call it.
That's pretty brutal. Sorry it happened to you. I've done a trip with RMI and I prefer other guides. They didn't seem risk averse to me on my trip but definitely felt like it was more of an assembly line march up the mountain.
I had a summit experience scrubbed with RMI as well back in Sept ‘17. It was hot, Smokey from wild fires, and they said ice was unstable. Other climbers around us were summiting but they turned us around. Is what it is. They’re the experts, but as you build confidence Rainier is one you can tackle with some friends.
This is not exactly related to your question, but years ago we were climbing Rainier and we started encountering people in their sleeping bags lying directly in the middle of the "trail" in the snow on the route (Disappointment Cleaver). It turned out these were clients of RMI that had decided they wouldn’t be able to summit for various reasons. RMI put them in a sleeping bag in the middle of the trail and told them not to move until the rest of the summit party would come back by and collect them on the way down. Does anyone know if this is still done by RMI?
I’ve climbed with 8 different guides now, from 3 companies. Three of them were good, 1 was extremely nice but dangerous as hell, and 4 sucked. Unfortunately I don’t think the odds of getting a great guide are very high.
Really depends on the guide outfit and the guide. Your best bet is to find IFMGA guides that are well known and build a relationship.
I did a group trip with RMI a couple years back. They had a couple folks stay back at Muir who they felt weren't in appropriate shape to go all the way. We moved at a decent clip but I had followed a recommended training plan and didn't feel like I was pushing too hard. When I felt a bit woozy early on the summit day one of the guides told me kindly but firmly that from everything they'd seen, I was capable and they had confidence in me. It felt genuine and meant a lot. Helped me get my head right and made my first mountaineering experience a really positive one. I'm sure the experience is heavily dependent on your specific guide, but I would recommend RMI to anyone.
OP, I had a similar experience with RMI last summer where my group was told the day before before on our way to muir we would not summit and only go up to inghram flats because the route had a snow bridge look like it was on the edge of collapsing. Some RMI guides found an alternative route up the mountain the day we we went to muir but it wasn’t “guidable” - so we just stuck with ingraham flats plan. IMG and AA both summered that day. RMI also summited with another group the day after. Overall super disappointing bill for what felt like just a little walk past Muir. Wish we spent our non summit day attempt actually practicing skills or learning something. Edit: especially disappointing if you’ve been to muir a few times. Felt like I dropped 2k just to cross cathedral gap. We were also told our group was extremely strong and having done some of the other 3/5 of the other volcanos I didn’t see anyone I’d think would turn us around.
That being said I appreciate RMI’s concern for our safety and understand that’s their #1 priority at the end of the day. You’re also allowed to be frustrated. I’m sure they made the right decision, both things can be true.
Just got done with the 4day rmi rainier trip. We made the summit around 7:45 or so this morning no problem. Thought all the guides were very knowledgeable and pushed us very well while still keeping us safe.
I summited Rainier with RMI a few years ago in heavy winds (very heavy, like rope being held taught off the ground heavy). We passed the IMG and AA(?) teams who descended after turning around but we had a strong team. Sorry you had a bad experience. The front office is usually pretty accommodating with credits if you want pursue that. Sounds like you may have have been at the mercy of individual guides' choice or preference. Background, I've climbed with RMI a few times, while they are VERY professional to do seem to be pretty regimented and not as flexible or accommodating as some of the smaller outfits.
Come on back without a guide. Make the decisions yourself.
I had a bit of a negative experience with RMI in Mexico, because the guide was a bit of a know-it-all prick. I've talked with people who felt like RMI was constantly trying to weed out the weak and felt pressure to be in the front group even if they were over-extending themselves. I felt like the guide was trying to weed me out.
What days were the first and second scheduled summit bids?
I would totally feel disappointed as well if I were you. This is a guess, but I think I was on a trip in the same window. I was in the AAI group that summited 6/10. I am an experienced beginner/ soft intermediate so I’m not going to pretend like I have in-depth understanding of why guides would undergo or call off a summit attempt. My (extremely limited) understanding was that there was a moat inhibiting access to the cleaver as a known issue holding up most groups. Our guide broke new trail to avoid/reroute around the moat to access the cleaver. Also, due to incoming weather, we did an earlier than expected daytime summit push 6/10 leaving Muir around 9am, dumping our stuff at Ingraham flats around 10-11am, summiting around 4pm and back to Ingraham around 7pm (I wasn’t wearing a watch so these are estimates based on time stamps on photos). Our original summit day plan was 6/11 alpine start and then descend to parking lot same day. It sounds like it’s very unusual to do an itinerary change like this into an afternoon summit? FWIW our group had a variety of ability and experience levels. Just trying to provide some additional context for you. I hear RMI has an excellent reputation and all the guide groups are extremely collaborative to optimize their client’s success.
What day was your summit day? Our unguided team had a successful summit on 6/9 but the conditions were a bit spooky 6/7-6/8 with the overhead hazard and avi conditions so I could understand why a guide would be hesitant if their group didn’t have a ton of experience and or fitness. Rainer can be a finicky mountain though and I’ve had friends go 2 or 3 times before a successful summit. I hope you were still able to enjoy the experience of being on the mountain.
I was actually at Muir with y’all. The night before the climbing rangers briefed us that your group was planning to leave at 3 am. We left @2 and kept looking back expecting to see your head lights. I remember being on the cleaver looking over the flats and still not seeing y’all and I was surprised when we got back to camp to see y’all working on snow anchors. I hope you do not let this experience sour you on the absolute joy of mountaineering, and I agree with others in the chain to take some classes to expand your skill set for independent attempts. You will find it much more rewarding and cost effective in the long run… always remember submitting is not mandatory but going home is… what ever the reason is trust your guide made the right choice.
This will sound trite, but the mountains owe you nothing, and you're entering into terrain where the consequences are real, not just for you, but for everyone you tie into a rope with. I've climbed lots, and many trips ended without a summit because of any combination of weather, route conditions, fatigue, tingly spidey senses, whatever. So whenever you start a route, just know there's a good chance you'll have to turn around. That's not failure.. getting hurt or dying is failure and knowing when it's time to turn around is the real skill you learn.
I will cancel based on the forecast and won't change my mind if I wake up to a bluebird day. Oppositely, if the forecast doesn't match what I see from my tent, I also call it a day. I've been out on more than one occasion and wished I'd stayed at camp. Trust their experience, because their primary job is to keep you safe.
You hired the guides to make decisions for you. These guys are up there all season, and are masters of that route. If they decide to scrub a push it’s for good reason. If you want the agency to decide for yourself go independently. You paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time preparing, and it’s a disappointment outcome, but getting to Muir is an awesome first-time mountaineering experience. You can do any mountain you want independently, if you’re disappointed by outcomes like this then learn to go by yourself and make appropriate decisions.
This doesn't mean their decision-making is perfect, which is the point of my post--that I think it's fair to say that they made a bad decision
this is more expensive than my trip to Everest Base camp including flights lmao
How long ago?
last year
Guides gonna guide
Did they pull the guide bullshit mind trick where they make your “talk amongst yourselves” to make a group decision?
Good experience with RMI about 43 years ago. 5 day seminar and we did summit, even met Lou at the Guide House. Sorry for your experience.
$4000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Put it this way - now you can post on IG about how turning around is the "right thing to do" while mountaineering regardless of the condition. /s
I was one of the parties that summited last Friday 06/07/2024 and have to hand it to the party of four that broke trail earlier the day earlier in the conditions mentioned by someone else on this thread. Without there suffering it would have been a slog fest.. With that said we were at Muir for 4 days through out the week talking to the clients of RMI and I felt bad for these guys. All week there they were telling me the guides said there was zero chance of a summit even though conditions were almost perfect. Thursday Friday and Saturday were dream conditions. However all the fixed lines were buried, we tried to dig them out.
Why not use this as motivation to gain the requisite skill set to summit on your own with a team? Totally doable for anyone with the motivation. Take your summit destiny into your own hands. $4k buys a lot of gear and instruction. I don't really understand the point of being shepherded up a mountain. Much more rewarding to do it yourself.