Will I be denied yet again??

I am trying desperately to not be negative but GEEZ! I am scheduled to make yet another stab at summiting Rainier this April 3-5th. Mother nature however seems to be throwing a rather large shit sandwich at me. We have had spring storms one after another! I begin to wonder when I will get the chance.

I have been turned back twice on this climb in the last two years. Once we awoke on the Ingraham glacier at midnight and the winds were flattening the tent I was in. We could not see the top half of the mountain. Complete white out. We waited for hours before having to call it. I then went back last year with a couple of good buddies. Colin Reedy (with whom I have climbed some great peaks, Shuksun/Baker to name a couple) and Tim Hicks (We did Hood not long ago). We headed up disappointment cleaver and as we climbed lightning strikes pummeled the mountain about every 30 seconds. It was cool to watch and we made sure to keep an eye on that storm. It stayed on the west ridge the whole time so we had no issues continuing. When we got to 13,000 ft on the switchbacks we saw a BLACK sky head toward us. We had hoped it would miss us and go behind the mountain....no such luck. We got crapped on and headed back down.

I will always try to make the "smart" decision and turn back when it is perceived to be dangerous. I don't have that much ego attached to attaining that peak. But it does start to grind. I even scheduled an extra day off from work in order to try this climb. I guess I will await to see what the climb leader on this says later this week. I will try to be hopeful.