Four Men Spend the Night in a Boiling Crater: An 1883 Assault on Mount Rainier
A climbing party from Olympia reaches the summit of Mount Rainier and bivouacs inside the crater, where the ground itself is too hot to touch.
OLYMPIA, August 22.—The Mount Rainier party, consisting of Messrs. Bayley, Longmire, Van Trump and Ewing, returned at 1 o'clock p.m. yesterday, having made a successful ascent to the summit of the mountain. They camped over night in the crater, amid fleecy clouds of smoke and steam. The rocks in the crater were so hot that they could not be touched without burning their hands.
“They camped over night in the crater, amid fleecy clouds of smoke and steam. The rocks in the crater were so hot that they could not be touched without burning their hands.”
In 1883 standing on Rainier's summit was a genuine feat of endurance, reported as a small triumph of Pacific Northwest exploration. Today the mountain draws tens of thousands of climbers, its routes are mapped to the footstep, and its glaciers are measurably shrinking — yet a night in the crater would still be a reckless, unforgettable thing to attempt. The era's awe at the summit and its boiling vents reads today as an invitation and a warning at once.
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