Mount Rainier Page from the Highpointers' Newsletter
History from summitpost.org
The mountain was originally named Tahoma or "Great Snowy Peak" by the Yakima
Indians. Captain George Vancouver renamed it after Admiral Peter Rainier of the
British Navy during a scouting expedition on May 7, 1792. This name was hotly
contested for over 100 years, because Americans felt it shouldn't be named after
a British officer who had never even been to the U.S.
The first ascent is believed to be in 1852, but is undocumented. The first
recorded ascent was on August 17, 1870 by General Hazard Stevens and Philemon
Van Trump, via the Kautz glacier. James Longmire and the Yakima Indian Sluiskin
provided the party with assistance in getting to the base of the mountain. They
climbed in 1 day from their camp just below the Kautz. Upon reaching the summit,
they nearly collapsed due to exhaustion, but managed to find a steam vent to
hide in.
On March 2, 1899 president William McKinley authorized the creation of Mount
Rainier National Park protecting 235,625 acres, including over 35 square miles
of glaciers blanketing the mountain. There are 25 large named glaciers on Mount
Rainier, including the enormous Emmons, which flows down the east face.
It is the highest volcano of the Cascade Range and the fourth highest mountain
of the continental USA. This is a huge mountain with multiple glaciers and
routes of all technical levels. Mount Rainier, the most heavily glaciated peak
in the contiguous United States, offers an exciting challenge to the
mountaineer. The regularly climbed routes are the Disappointment Cleaver and
the Emmons Glacier which are consider class 4 routes. More than 10,000 people a
year try to scale this mountain and many expeditions for bigger mountains come
to Rainier for their training runs.