Rainier in a day

What fitness benchmarks can be used to gauge whether someone is capable of climbing (and descending) Rainier in a day, via any route? i.e. hiking Mailbox peak in 1.5 hours. I'm planning to attempt this (again) via Fuhrer Finger in the spring on skis, but am curious about the general fitness background of people who do this, whether on skis or on foot.

TBH I think the bigger physiological component is altitude over pure fitness/ability to walk uphill fast. I went up Mailbox the other day in 1:20 and I am confident I could do Rainier in a day again.

That's a great point Daniel. I wonder if acclimatization was used in the Rainier FKT's. Spend 4 days at Muir doing nothing, walk down and chill at Paradise for a day, then go for it. For Liberty Ridge, I've wondered if it might be advantageous to camp the first night at Schurman, just to be at 10k ft for a night, then head down and around to reach the Ridge.

Rainier in a day is an interesting objective.

When the gate it locked overnight it is hard to time it right unless you drive up the night before and get in, sleep, and start at the right time (most likely before the gate opens for the day). If you are in the 24 hr C2C range than the gate status obviously does not matter, but if you're shooting for faster times then navigating the gate opening/closing can be tricky. 

When there is 24/7 access, I agree that it is more about being acclimated. Being in excellent shape helps operate efficiently with less acclimation. Better fitness will always be better. 

In addition, just being able to press on for the required time is a skill, and being able to be on the move for 18+ hours (possibly up to 24 hours or even longer) will likely result in being able to C2C most routes on Rainier.  BL: a slow, but efficient, party that does not waste time and is constantly on the move could certainly C2C many routes. FF being one of them. 

Regarding your second post and acclimation, most FKT folks I believe normally reside where their base elevation is between 5-8k (or higher). A day two (or 4) at 10k (Muir) will help prevent AMS, HAPE, and HACE on the upper mountain, but it does not truly acclimate your body for high performance above 10k. My research and experience has been it takes about 2+ weeks to really fully acclimate, and then those benefits remain for about two weeks after returning to sea level. 

You're idea for LR would certainly help, but it does add another night, which is more food, fuel, uncertainty, etc. that you just end up carrying up the ridge.  Starting and getting to Thumb Rock, or Curtis Ridge, is a solid first day, and then up the ridge and down on the second.  Adding a stop at Schurman is just that, another stop. 

There is another option for the sea level population: an altitude generation tent or mask. Relatively pricy, but not ridiculous, and lots of info on the internet. I have one and I think it really helps me live and work at sea level and operate fast and efficient, especially for C2C to 14k. 

Cheers,

Dave 

having flown from sea level friday, done a mild hiking day to snow line on saturday, and gone c2c in 15:40 (skiing, emmons) sunday.

doing 10k vertical days in the mountains and doing other 14ers car-to-car was good prep for this.   doing previous 10k vertical days means you know what to expect mentally, and also how to pace/eat/drink correctly so you don't explode 2/3rds of the way up.   the only thing different about tahoma, as opposed to other long 14er slogs, was the ropework for glacier travel which makes for a slightly heavier pack.   

James C wrote:

That's a great point Daniel. I wonder if acclimatization was used in the Rainier FKT's. Spend 4 days at Muir doing nothing, walk down and chill at Paradise for a day, then go for it. For Liberty Ridge, I've wondered if it might be advantageous to camp the first night at Schurman, just to be at 10k ft for a night, then head down and around to reach the Ridge.

Going to altitude the night before will decrease your ability. You won't sleep well and your body will be starting to adapt but not adapted yet. You need several days at least and sleeping low the night or two before is helpful as it allows you to be fully recovered. 

Doing a short effort (Mailbox or anything sub 2 hrs) is not indicative of Rainier in a day. Rainier is 9-10k' and so doing a mere 1,000' per hour is more than enough to get it done (you will be able to descend much faster). 

I think everyone on here will have different metrics because everyone has weaknesses. For me, doing muscular endurance weighted pack carries made things like Rainier in a day feel much easier because I was not strong before but had a big aerobic base. Some people who are super strong but don't have the aerobic base will tell you that being able to run a certain distance or time is their benchmark. Altitude adaptation will be key for others. 

You will certainly need aerobic fitness, strength, and experience at altitude. Look at what you've done before and use that to assess your ability. Another person's metrics may or may not work for you so don't get too caught up in it. Learning what your individual physiology needs to be ready for something like this is one of the biggest rewards of the process. 

If I lived in Seattle area my metric would probably be, can I do Mailbox in under 3 hrs with a 70lb pack of water on my back, empty it on the summit, jog down and still feel fine to go for a 90 minute run the next day. 

I am not sure if uli stiedal (I think his time on foot is sub 5 hours) has the fkt or that’s the one you guys are talking about but his wife officiated my brothers wedding. He may have done some prep but I am pretty sure 99% of his training was just running. Most the fkts are people who are/were runners.

If you want a benchmark you could find uli or whoever has the FKT on strava and see what they did for runs leading up to the FKT. Ulis' strava is hilarious. 

Can you do the north face of adams in 1 day c2c, with lout symptoms of hape or hace.

Even those that acclimate on our peaks can still get hape or hace. Especially if there c2c gets delayed and a un foreseen bivy takes place. 

Start small and train for your soul objective like Rainer c2c for a year. More difficult find a 2nd with the same goal. 

Edit: add AMS to the list. If you want any literature to inform yourself I will loan it to you. 

Here is an a article about mailbox and Rainer by the current FKT. Uli did mailbox top to bottom in a moving time of 90 min and Rainer 4 hours and 30 min. Uli once made my brother lightly poop himself because he tried to keep up on a decent over white pass and the pounding made the poop come out. 

I looked up some Strava records of Rainier summiters. It's tricky because there isn't really a segment for an entire route (that would be hard to track since people always go on variations), so I check the segment that exists for quarter mile jog at the crater rim and check that they didn't do something crazy like the infinity loop. Found one guy who seems to have similar fitness to me who did DC in 18 hours on foot, single-push. Was hoping to be faster, but ah well. Guess I've got some double-Mailbox runs and water carries in my near future. My fastest time up the old trail is 1:33.

Dave Schultz wrote:

Rainier in a day is an interesting objective.

When the gate it locked overnight it is hard to time it right unless you drive up the night before and get in, sleep, and start at the right time (most likely before the gate opens for the day). If you are in the 24 hr C2C range than the gate status obviously does not matter, but if you're shooting for faster times then navigating the gate opening/closing can be tricky. 

When there is 24/7 access, I agree that it is more about being acclimated. Being in excellent shape helps operate efficiently with less acclimation. Better fitness will always be better. 

In addition, just being able to press on for the required time is a skill, and being able to be on the move for 18+ hours (possibly up to 24 hours or even longer) will likely result in being able to C2C most routes on Rainier.  BL: a slow, but efficient, party that does not waste time and is constantly on the move could certainly C2C many routes. FF being one of them. 

Regarding your second post and acclimation, most FKT folks I believe normally reside where their base elevation is between 5-8k (or higher). A day two (or 4) at 10k (Muir) will help prevent AMS, HAPE, and HACE on the upper mountain, but it does not truly acclimate your body for high performance above 10k. My research and experience has been it takes about 2+ weeks to really fully acclimate, and then those benefits remain for about two weeks after returning to sea level. 

You're idea for LR would certainly help, but it does add another night, which is more food, fuel, uncertainty, etc. that you just end up carrying up the ridge.  Starting and getting to Thumb Rock, or Curtis Ridge, is a solid first day, and then up the ridge and down on the second.  Adding a stop at Schurman is just that, another stop. 

There is another option for the sea level population: an altitude generation tent or mask. Relatively pricy, but not ridiculous, and lots of info on the internet. I have one and I think it really helps me live and work at sea level and operate fast and efficient, especially for C2C to 14k. 

Cheers,

Dave 

What acclimation tent do you use? 

My brother, a couple friends and I did Rainier C2C. Did it last June, before the big melt. Took about 18 hours for us. We did not acclimate--coming from Seattle and Portland respectively. We saved on weight due to this approach--my pack/rack (wet) was about 16lbs, with the heaviest pack in our group clocking in at under 30. Our biggest issues were dehydration/lack of acclimation. We generally made bad estimates about how fast we were going to climb, but at the end of the day, fitness-wise, I wouldn't say the bar was super high for us. 

That summer I was mostly just running to train (probably 17-22 miles a week) and doing trail running on the Old Si trial/Tiger mountain. We had also done Shastina C2C in 10 hours (earlier that month). Me and another party member had done Adams C2C in 6 hours. Biggest thing was just the acclimation though. If I were to do C2C again I would want to spend a damn week in the Paradise parking lot haha. 

Edit: This was the ID route, early season, no skis by the way.

I climbed Rainer via the fuherer finger and descended via snowboard in 2018. It was my first time on the mountain and aside from some higher climbing in the the Sierras and Nepal one of my few ventures above 10,000 feet. I overtrained significantly and felt like I could have done it easily in a day during the initial approach.

However, at about 11,000 I got absolutely destroyed by the altitude. 

We acclimatized for about 12 hours below the Finger. I am really glad we did that despite my initial psych.  I would not attempt a c2c with out significant acclimatization (but I guess it hits everyone differently.) 

James C wrote:

What acclimation tent do you use? 

Hey James!  Hope you are doing great, Justin filled me in on both of your recent endeavors, all very cool.

I've used the Hypoxico tent pretty extensively.  I do not recommend it for something like this unless you are really altitude sensitive, committed to the objective, and do not believe you can do it otherwise.  It definitely helps acclimatization if you can spend a significant amount of time in it.  I found that it takes about 2-3x the time to acclimatize doing overnights in the tent vs actually spending time up high. However, my sleep definitely suffers significantly while in it, and therefore my recovery time for my daily workouts suffers significantly.  Recovering from a bigger workout/climb in the tent has been impossible for me.

I've climbed Rainer C2C (on foot, no skis) via the Ingraham Direct- based on when we met on Hood, I am pretty sure you can manage that without issue.  The FF is a more significant climb than the ID as I am sure you are aware, but the descent on skis may negate that time wise. Feel free to hit me up if you want more info about the tents. Good luck bud!!

The finger is the shortest and most direct route. Anyone reasonably fit (think three Muir snowfield laps in a day or under 3 hours car to Muir) should be able to summit in less than 10 hours, then 30 minutes to ski to the bridge. The key and wild card as others have said  is altitude sickness. Also timing. It’s directly south facing and becomes a shooting gallery when it warms up. You want to summit before noon at the latest.

Here’s another vote for Fuhrer Finger. It’s very non-technical in spring, and the weather will be the biggest crux.

I regularly hike/ski at 9000’, and I had the same slow down w altitude at about 13,000’, but it was manageable for sure. We also camped for 12 ish hours at 9200’. Skis are the way to go.

If possible, I’d be hiking regularly at anything above 10,000’ for conditioning, for doing it in a day. But, there’s a few fit people I know who have done Rainier  in a day, and they all were feeling it afterwards. 

My dad did it, ill include trip report nwhikers.net/forums/viewtop…

Chris C wrote:

Hey James!  Hope you are doing great, Justin filled me in on both of your recent endeavors, all very cool.

I've used the Hypoxico tent pretty extensively.  I do not recommend it for something like this unless you are really altitude sensitive, committed to the objective, and do not believe you can do it otherwise.  It definitely helps acclimatization if you can spend a significant amount of time in it.  I found that it takes about 2-3x the time to acclimatize doing overnights in the tent vs actually spending time up high. However, my sleep definitely suffers significantly while in it, and therefore my recovery time for my daily workouts suffers significantly.  Recovering from a bigger workout/climb in the tent has been impossible for me.

I've climbed Rainer C2C (on foot, no skis) via the Ingraham Direct- based on when we met on Hood, I am pretty sure you can manage that without issue.  The FF is a more significant climb than the ID as I am sure you are aware, but the descent on skis may negate that time wise. Feel free to hit me up if you want more info about the tents. Good luck bud!!

Hey Chris, thanks, this clarifies a lot. Was hoping that the altitude tent would be something I could just sleep in every night to retain a free bonus to my mountain fitness, but I see TNSTAAFL. Yep, I've always thought I could do Rainier on foot or skis in a day, just wanted to get more data on people's experiences. My last attempt on FF was in early season conditions. The snow in the Finger was not bootable (breakable crust), so we ended up skinning it with 20+ kick turns, which destroyed us physically and mentally. At least the ski down was nice. If there was an existing bootpack we probably could have summited easily.

saign charlestein wrote:

The finger is the shortest and most direct route. Anyone reasonably fit (think three Muir snowfield laps in a day or under 3 hours car to Muir) should be able to summit in less than 10 hours, then 30 minutes to ski to the bridge. The key and wild card as others have said  is altitude sickness. Also timing. It’s directly south facing and becomes a shooting gallery when it warms up. You want to summit before noon at the latest.

3 hours to Muir, and 30 min to ski to the bridge is very fast in my book. My fastest time to Muir is 3.3 hours and that was during a season with lots of touring (for a weekend warrior). I've got average susceptibility to altitude effects I think. Been above 14k 7-8 times total, and have gotten AMS twice at 12k. I'm way better at drinking, eating abundantly now in the alpine which seems to stave off the effects. I'd probably try to make a trip to Adams shortly before my next attempt.

James C wrote:

Hey Chris, thanks, this clarifies a lot. Was hoping that the altitude tent would be something I could just sleep in every night to retain a free bonus to my mountain fitness, but I see TNSTAAFL. Yep, I've always thought I could do Rainier on foot or skis in a day, just wanted to get more data on people's experiences. My last attempt on FF was in early season conditions. The snow in the Finger was not bootable (breakable crust), so we ended up skinning it with 20+ kick turns, which destroyed us physically and mentally. At least the ski down was nice. If there was an existing bootpack we probably could have summited easily.

3 hours to Muir, and 30 min to ski to the bridge is very fast in my book. My fastest time to Muir is 3.3 hours and that was during a season with lots of touring (for a weekend warrior). I've got average susceptibility to altitude effects I think. Been above 14k 7-8 times total, and have gotten AMS twice at 12k. I'm way better at drinking, eating abundantly now in the alpine which seems to stave off the effects. I'd probably try to make a trip to Adams shortly before my next attempt.

If you can do Muir in 3 hours 20 minutes that may be more of a 12-14 hour summit time. That’s all speculation though. I’d bang out a few 10k plus days before trying, then probably start around midnight. That would get you out of the finger shortly after the sun comes up. After that the objective hazards turn to crevasses and not rockfall.

30 minutes to ski to the bridge should be plenty for a competent skier. It’s a straight shot, no uphill like you have coming down from Muir or other routes, although the bottom does get pretty flat for the last half mile or so.