Mount Rainier, WA, August 2008 – When Tyson Supasatit, Senior Writer at Washburn Communication, sets his mind to a task, he follows through to completion. This drive to succeed recently led Supasatit on a quest to reach the summit of Mount Rainier, Washington’s highest peak at more than 14,000 feet. “I grew up in this area, so climbing Mount Rainier is something I’ve always wanted to do,” he says. “Every time I saw it, the challenge was there.”

Supasatit began the two-day ascent with a party of 15 other climbers the first week of August. The first stage of the climb took the team to Camp Muir, nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, where the group settled in for a few hours sleep. “Actually, I didn’t sleep more than an hour. Believe it or not, there are mice at 10,000 feet, and they kept me awake in the darkness. I was ecstatic when we woke at midnight to prepare for the ascent,” says Supasatit.

Setting out at 1:00a.m. and roped together in smaller groups, the team traversed two glaciers and several rock and ash scrambles with headlamps, crampons, and ice axes. The first light of dawn broke over the Olympic Mountains when Supasatit reached 12,000 feet above sea level, at the top of Disappointment Cleaver. “I was not comfortable, to say the least, but just being there at that time was beyond words,” he says.

The final leg of the climb involved ascending ice fields at near 60-degree angles. “It was a struggle to stay focused on breathing and making the most of every exertion. The wind was kicking up and blowing against our bulked-up profiles,” remembers Supasatit. “At last, I saw the rope team ahead of us disappear over the lip of the summit and knew I had made it.”

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