I went to Mount Rainier for the purpose of attempting to summit it with my brother and my dad. We were all partially prepared, but, in retrospect, probably not quite ready. We, unfortunately, did not summit. We did make it up to the base camp (which is, in itself, a rather grueling day), but this is where things started to go wrong.

None of us really had enough food or water, which seem like something we would have been ready for. I feel like we might have been tricked by the perceived short length of time we would be up there. Not shockingly, one full day of hiking up a snowfield is VERY tiring, and makes you VERY hungry. Much more so than the multi-day backpacking we normally do. Next time, I'll probably bring double or triple what I brought the first time. Additionally, our method of melting water took quite a bit more fuel than we had expected. We really didn't have enough water to stay properly hydrated.

Despite all this, we did start our attempt the next morning - but poorly hydrated and not super full. We roped up, and waked across our first couple of crevasses and up our first rockfall. Matters were made worse when the rockfall turned into a rock-slide, and my brother got a bit caught up in it. I think this is when we all started to think we might not actually make it. Not long after that, my brother began to complain of altitude sickness, and that pretty much sealed the deal. We debated our options, and ended up turning back. Probably a good call, realistically. Better safe than sorry.