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The Climbers Who Survived a Week Stuck on Mount Rainier

After a climbing partner became ill, high winds stranded Yev Krasnitskiy and his team on the upper reaches of Mount Rainier for five days with no way to go but up

The National Park Service estimates that only 53 percent of those who attempt to go up via Liberty Ridge actually make it to the top.
Mount Rainier’s Liberty Ridge begins at roughly 8,000 feet on the peak’s north face and runs all the way to the 14,411-foot summit. Considered a classic climb, Liberty Ridge is the most technically difficult and dangerous route to the top of Rainier. Only 53 percent of the climbers who attempt the ridge complete it. 

Yev Krasnitskiy, a 39-year-old systems engineer from Portland, Oregon, has summited Rainier half a dozen times, including one ascent via Liberty Ridge. On June 1 of this year, he began a second attempt of the ridge with three other climbers. What was planned as a long one-day climb became a five-day life-or-death ordeal. 

Here’s Krasnitskiy’s story, as told to Outside.  Read more...