In July of 2002 I climbed Mt Rainier for the second time with a great team which included: Tom Romary, Bill Romary, Jon Faller, Tim Krozek, and Erik Duisenberg. This was my first trip up the Emmons Glacier route and loved it. The Emmons is a bit less technical than the more popular Disappointment Cleaver route, a lot less crowded, but more beautiful in my opinion. Climbing the Emmons takes you through 5000 feet of raw glacier where you witness amazing features.
We had a great climb in great weather. The route was in good shape. We ascended to Camp Schurman on Friday, took a short nap Friday night, awaking at midnight . We started hiking around 1am and reached the summit at 9am or so. The route took us to the left at around 11,500 feet wrapping around the mountain to connect to the top of the Disappointment Cleaver route. I guess this is not typical, but we were just following the boot track that earlier climbers had established.
We descended to Camp Schurman and then down to the Glacier Basin campground where we spent Saturday night. Many mosquitoes! Saturday night it rained on us quite a bit—we were fortunate that we summitted the day before.
Here are a few pictures from the trip.
Big trees 