A Dream in the Making

Hi ya'll! Jillian here, settling back into the office after the adventure of a lifetime. If you've been on a trip with me recently, this is ALL I've been talking about. 

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I have had my eye on Mount Rainier ever since Nathan and I spent our first summer together in Washington State. I reached out to our friend Steffan Gregory last winter to start putting a team together, which eventually ended up being just the two of us. I knew Steffan just about as well as I knew what climbing Mount Rainier really entailed. In typical Jillian fashion I jumped in with two feet anyway, hoping for the best.⁠

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A knee injury last winter was followed by months of PT which was in turn followed by months of All Ways Adventure mowing me down. In the weeks leading up to my departure for Seattle, I started freaking out about how I wanted to be more prepared. Promises of "it's just a hike" from friends who had climbed Rainier before eased my anxiety. I got a brief glimpse of the mountain as my plane landed in SeaTac and the unsettled, uncertain anxiety welled up. ⁠

First Steps Into the Unknown

Steffan did the lion's share of the planning and prep for this trip. After he picked me up at the airport we immediately began working down the list of last minute shopping items. Sleep was restless that night (#*@! mosquitoes!) and the next morning we departed early for Mount Rainier National Park. ⁠

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I didn't know it yet, but I was in over my head.

Steffan and I arrived on schedule at Mount Rainier to find a huge line to get in the park. Rookie mistake. Oh well, windows down, music up, cruising through the forest. All was well. Steffan and I barely knew each other, but during our drive to the trailhead, I realized that a friendship was blooming. "That's good," I thought. ⁠

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We picked up the permit, found a parking spot, and threw our packs on. They didn't even feel that heavy...yet. ⁠

The Challenge Begins: Mosquitoes, Doubt, and Heavy Packs

A few miles up the trail I was getting really PO'ed about the mosquitoes. I live in the desert for a reason. The doubt started creeping in again, but some calories at lunch and a quick break helped. ⁠

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Suddenly, the casual trail ended and the Inter Glacier was in sight. Mountaineering boots on (I'd only worn these around the house!), ropes, ice axes, crampons, helmets. I felt like I was armed, against my will, with a dozen murderous switchblades that were going to stab me or someone else. Sharp things were sticking off of me in every direction. Or maybe these things wanted to save me? From what? "What did it mean when Steffan said the mountain was really open?" I wondered...⁠

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Trudging up the Inter Glacier I became convinced that Steffan had slipped rocks in my pack, I wasn't conditioned enough for this trail, and we would have to turn around. With the speed that I was moving, why would we even bother to make a summit attempt. What would be the point? I was so obviously in over my head! A former colleague was the first one to notice and tactfully point out my negative self-talk. Even though I know about it in the big scheme of things now, I still often miss it in the moment. Steffan doesn't coddle. He reminded me to take it one step at a time and let me be responsible for my own mental battles.⁠

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After arriving at camp I nervously inquired, "Do you think that our pace is enough for a summit bid?" Steffan didn't sugar coat it. "We can't go any slower," he said. ⁠



Exhausted, we set up camp, ate some food (miso soup appetizer anyone?!), and settled in. The sunset was magical and we enjoyed a piece of dark chocolate to celebrate Steffan's birthday. Sleep was peaceful that night.

Snow School and Facing Crevasses

The next morning we woke up at Camp Schurman. The Emmons Glacier stretched out for miles above us. We got out early to get in some snow school before things started to warm up. I'm 100% certain that Steffan prepared me about the timing of things, but I guess I just filed it away in the "worry about it later" folder. Instead of preparing, I learned on the fly. Things basically made sense - we need to be off the glacier before the warmest part of the day to avoid rock fall and to minimize our chances of falling into a crevasse. Check out this beast right next to our camp. If you zoom in, you can see the trail crossing the crevasse near the top of the photo. ⁠

Oh yeah, crevasses are a thing I know about now. Eventually we would literally jump across, oh I don't know, 10 or so crevasses. I kept telling Steffan that if there were a photo of me jumping across these crevasses, it could hang in a guidance counselor's office and have a caption that says "commitment" or something cheesy at the bottom. Turns out that the mountain being "open" meant that the snow had melted off exposing the gnarly crevasses underneath. Steffan suggested July for this trip due to the historical July conditions. You might expect crevasses to be covered completely, making it easy to just hike right up. Instead, the Washington heat wave provided us with September conditions. Thanks a lot global warming.

So anyway, we got up and did snow school. After spending years as a canyoneering guide, I know all about getting in and out of deep slots. Granted, when I'm canyoneering I am planning to go into the canyon. Crevasses are just like surprise canyoneering where you're covered with sharp things. Like, you're walking across a snow field and then BOOM, you're free falling into a blue/black ice canyon, hoping that your partner is self arresting so your rope will catch you both. Not ideal, but a workable situation.⁠

Snow school was honestly the biggest confidence boost I got while we were on Rainier. The skills felt obvious and easy and I was certain that I could rescue Steffan or myself as well as a seasoned mountaineer.

Planning for the Summit Attempt

We came back to camp, discussed more glacier travel techniques, ate lots of food, and endured the guided trips pestering us about our start time. They had plans that were wildly different than ours and appeared to be judgmental about our ideas. Despite the radio static, we agreed to stick to our departure time and "went to bed" early. Like 3pm early. Like the tent was still blistering hot early. Steffan taught me to use the sleeping bags draped outside the tent to insulate from the heat and I laid on my sleeping pad for 6 hours. Sleep never came.

At 9pm we stood up (not to be confused with woke up) and finished up the remainder of our packing for our summit bid. We started off strong, right out of the gate. Covered in sharp things, sporting fragile (and expensive!) clothing, and donning headlamps, we left camp. We departed a few minutes late at 10:15pm and were hitting Steffan's goal of 1000ft an hour. We were going to try for the summit, and our planned turn around time was 6am. Ahead of us lay unfamiliar travel through crevassed terrain covered in these god awful penitentes (more on those later), all in total darkness.

Surprisingly, I felt optimistic and I was moving well. Lots of people have done this, right? Why are they any better than me?

Battling Fatigue and Mental Walls

Then came the first calorie crash. I didn't feel hungry when we left base camp and totally spaced on the concept that we eat and drink for what we're about to do, not what we just did. So the first hour I was running on a few bites of chocolate. Understandably, I got fatigued. ⁠

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At our first stop I ate some food, but failed to put on my puffy jacket. I got very cold, very fast and spent the next hour trying to warm back up. By our second break, I had my system sorted out. All the clothes I had with me were on, snacks were accessible in my pocket, and water was just a huge pain. Eventually it would take whole minutes for me to do some seemingly simple task, like putting my backpack on or zipping my coat.⁠

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By our third or fourth break, my focus was oscillating between just a few things - telling myself to step, summoning all my willpower NOT to ask Steffan to take a break, and redirecting my negative thoughts to positive thoughts about all of the outpouring of support that I received for this trip. I won't even attempt to list everyone, but I passed my time thinking about each friend and family member that popped into my head. These photos may depict a team of two on Mount Rainier, but we were several hundred strong. Without these positive thoughts about my loved ones, I would have turned around and I am 100% certain of that. I was carried up the mountain by the good vibes of my community.⁠

Ice Fins, Penitentes, and Vertical Ice: Major Obstacles

Two of the dozens of obstacles really stick out in my mind:

The first, a fin of ice jutting into a behemoth crevasse. The trail felt like walking the line for a sobriety test and if you stumbled, there was a crevasse on one side and a wall with a big, black nothingness behind it on the other. It seemed unreasonable, but the boot path was obvious, so we pushed forward. The fin eventually led to a jump over the crevasse below us and back to a trail, which we proceeded to lose. We found ourselves in a sea of penitentes. These ice "dragon scales" look fragile but were actually quite rigid and would force your feet to face a certain direction. God forbid you start teetering one way or the other because those penitentes were unyielding.



The second obstacle that is burned into my brain was a very short pitch of vertical ice climbing. Fortunately, it seemed very casual to Steffan, so he soloed it and belayed me up. Steffan looked down at me and said something like, "Well, now you'll learn to ice climb," and I swung my axe, kicked my crampons, and went up. Hah.

The Final Decision

6am was our planned turn around time. This was to ensure that we would have time to return to camp before temps caused the ice to soften and get unstable. At 5:50am, we sat down for a team meeting. We knew that the summit had exposed rock, but we weren't sure how much rock hiking there would be before an actual high point. Behind us, the scree stretched out a few hundred feet. We took a moment to meditate on whether it was time to turn around or not. I requested that we keep going, and Steffan agreed to a compromise - we would go as far as the rock that we could see and then turn around. The moment that we realized that the summit was in sight, the water works began. It was so much closer than we thought. We pushed on and stood on the summit of Mount Rainier.


I'm still overwhelmed by my feelings of gratitude (and during a revision for the blog 4 years later, I’m still crying reading this). At the summit, we had time to hug, take a photo, cry and then turn around. I don't remember the view at all. At the summit, of course, we were halfway.

The Long Descent and Lessons in Gratitude

Descending Rainier was uneventful. Just like the way up, it was really, really, really hard. The main difference was that it was randomly hard to see because I kept bursting out into tears. I repeated in my mind, and sometimes out loud "thank you for letting us be here" to the mountain. It's obviously not terrain that welcomes human life for any extended period of time. ⁠

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On the way down we passed a team that kept saying "You were the two headlamps!" They got a later start than us, so by the time they woke up to begin their summit push, we were already several thousand feet above them with our two headlamps shining into the dark. Seeing us so high on the mountain got them psyched, and I'm sure that the close proximity of their positive vibes lightened my pack for at least few steps, even though I didn't know it until later.⁠

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Steffan facilitated a trip that would never have been possible on my own. He went above and beyond what I would ever expect from a climbing partner and changed the way I think about how I participate in that kind of relationship. He was patient and supportive and simultaneously held space for me to be independent and trustworthy. He helped me shop for all the right gear, planned a flexible itinerary, and spent his personal time to give me an opportunity that changed my life. He's spent thousands of hours of his life honing his mind and body to pursue his own passions and has chosen to share himself to create opportunity for others. What a gift. Steffan, I CAN'T WAIT for our next adventure. Watch out Pervertical Sanctuary, here we come!!⁠

Finding Peace, Gratitude, and a Renewed Self

For me, standing on the summit wasn't about accomplishing a dream or conquering a mountain. It was about bowing down, surrendering to the power and wonder of nature and overflowing with gratitude for the support of my community. None of the adventures I have taken on in my past have provided such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and humility. When I met my physical limit, the love and support of my community transformed into physical strength and carried me forward. I didn't even know that that was possible. Standing on the summit, surprisingly, I didn't feel proud at all - just grateful. I came home from my trip battered and bruised, but feeling like I was seeing the world in full color for the first time in a long time. On the plane ride home, I killed the battery on my cell phone while spewing notes about future goals, ideas, and loved ones that I need to reach out to. It's like a key was turned and the flood gates have opened. I'm myself. I'm small and fallible and also quite strong and resilient. And incredibly lucky.

Paying It Forward

If you've ever been on a guided trip with me, I had a goal for you, whether you knew it or not. I worked hard to facilitate an experience that would give you the opportunity to do something that you thought you couldn't do. The self doubt is so challenging, but without it there is nothing to overcome and no chance to feel this high. Everyone's Mount Rainier is different, but I hope that just a few times in my career, I can play the role that Steffan played on my trip, that pivotal supporter who gets out of the way so that you can fight your own battles and find your own peace.

Mount Rainier returned me to society in one piece, but I think a dopamine receptor in my brain is stuck open. 🤪 I'm just so humble and grateful.