A Night Spent in the Steam Vents of Mount Rainier
An early mountaineer recounts a harrowing, freezing night spent huddled inside a steam-carved cavern near the summit.
After a long search, Van Trump finally found the location where General Stevens and himself had found shelter for the night in 1870; the roof had melted away, leaving only a circular hole in the snow, ten or twelve feet in depth and about eighteen feet in diameter. From a small and irregular hole in the center turned a jet of steam about the size of one's little finger. Longmire and Van Trump lowered themselves inside the wall and on either side of the steam jet, while Sluiskin leveled a spot seven feet long, inside the cave, and prepared to pass the night pacing to and fro to keep from freezing, preferring this weary exercise to cooling myself with the mist, which had already saturated the clothing of my companions. It was a dreary outlook for the night. The thermometer soon fell to 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind howled and roared and poured down the mountain with a fury that made us long for the warm blankets we left in camp. Notwithstanding the discomfort and pain of our situation, one could not but take note of the weird beauty of the night.
“The wind howled and roared and poured down the mountain with a fury that made us long for the warm blankets we left in camp.”
Early mountaineering in the Cascades was often a battle against the elements with minimal gear, predating the high-tech survival equipment used by modern climbers. The 'steam caves' near the summit of Mount Rainier remain a subject of fascination and danger for modern explorers.
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